This page will be continuously updated based on incoming questions.
General information
The conference will take place in the city of Bath, United Kingdom. Details about buildings and rooms will follow in due time.
To stay updated, you can subscribe to our Earth System Governance newsletter, follow us on LinkedIn and Bluesky, and check for regular updates on our conference website.
It depends on the sessions you wish to attend. The 2026 Bath Conference will take place primarily in person, with only a limited number of sessions offered in a hybrid format. Plenary Sessions will be streamed live for virtual participants and recorded for later viewing. Please check again when the Preliminary Programme is released in spring 2026 to see which additional sessions may be available for virtual participation.
For non-presenting participants attending the conference virtually, a limited number of sessions will be available in a hybrid format. The conference will operate in British Summer Time (GMT+1). While we make every effort to accommodate participants from different time zones when scheduling the programme, we cannot guarantee that this will be possible for all hybrid sessions.
No, the Meeting Day is open to all conference participants.
Registration
Yes. Only contributions whose presenters have completed the registration will be included in the conference programme.
All information on the conference fees, fee structure, terms of registration and payment method can be found here.
Persons fulfilling one or two of the criteria below are eligible for reduced conference fees, with or without an accepted conference contribution.
- Currently enrolled in a PhD or Master program.
- Based in a low or middle-income countries as per the World Bank’s latest country income classification [see the list here].
To access this discount, please select the Concession ticket in the conference shop. Proof of eligibility will need to be uploaded in PDF form in order to check out. If proof of eligibility is not provided, extra payment may be required in order to attend the conference.
The following proof of eligibility is required:
For early-career researchers
- Proof of enrolment in Master or PhD program
For researchers based in low or middle-income countries
- Proof of employment at an institution in a low and middle income country
- Proof of residency in a low or middle-income country
Thanks to the generous support of the Institute of Sustainability and Climate Change at the University of Bath, we can offer travel grants to a limited number of participants in our 2026 Bath ESG Conference.
PhD and Master students and participants based in the low- and middle-income countries [see list here] who have at least one accepted contribution to the conference are eligible to apply for travel grants.
Early-career researchers (ECRs) can engage with the conference in several ways. Different definitions of “ECR” apply depending on the type of activity:
- Broader definition (PhD and Master’s students, and those who obtained their PhD within the last five years before the conference):
- Individuals within this group are welcome to participate in the Early Career Day and Meeting Day, and may also have opportunities to chair sessions during the main conference, even without an accepted contribution.
- In addition, those with at least one accepted contribution are eligible to apply for the Oran R. Young Prize.
- Narrower definition (PhD and Master students only):
- Due to budget limitations, eligibility for reduced conference fees is restricted to this group, even without an accepted contribution.
- Individuals within this group with at least one accepted contribution are also eligible to apply for travel grants provided by the conference host at the University of Bath.
Full paper upload
There is no specific length requirement for full papers. Authors can upload their papers via ConfTool. For individual papers, the submitter should upload a single PDF file. For full panels, the submitter must combine all papers in the panel into a single file (PDF, DOCX, or ZIP) and upload it. The deadline for full paper submission is 15 August.
To upload your file, please follow these steps:
- Log in to ConfTool
- Click “Your submissions”
- For each accepted submission that you submit, click “Final upload”
- Upload your final version (PDF for individual papers; PDF, docx or Zip for full panels) (Please note that files cannot be modified after upload).
Session details
The time allotted to your presentation will depend on the number of presenters in your panel. As a general guideline, the standard Q&A will be 30 minutes. Therefore, estimated guidelines are:
- Four Presenters = 15 minutes each
- Five presenters = 12 minutes each
- Six Presenters = 10 minutes each
Please be mindful to respect the chair’s guidelines, and allow each presenter to receive sufficient space for presentation and questions.
Call for papers
You need to submit your proposal via the Conference Portal. The portal is provided by ConfTool, the conference management software used for this conference.
Please follow the instructions on this page to submit your proposal: https://www.conftool.net/en/user-documentation/instructions-for-authors.html
You can also watch this short video on how to use the Conference Portal.
Yes, you are welcome to submit an abstract. We will review it and determine whether it can be accepted for presentation. Please note that acceptance of a paper for presentation does not guarantee travel support.
Yes, but only for individual paper proposals. Please note that if a presenter chooses to participate online, the likelihood of acceptance will be lower, as only around 20% of the accepted papers can be presented virtually.
For full panel and innovative session proposals, the submitter must select the option: “I understand that full panels and innovative sessions will be mainly in person, and all presenters are supposed to attend the conference physically”.
There is no direct question about that in the submission form, but there is a question regarding whether the author would like their submission to be considered for the Oran R. Young Prize, which is a prize for the best paper at the conference by early-career researcher. So, if you answer “Yes” to that question, this would indicate that the submission is from an early career researcher.
Please consult the Earth System Governance Science and Implementation Plan (2018) and the core questions that are included in the description of each Conference Stream in the Call for Papers.
No, you can only select one Conference Stream. However, you can add other relevant Conference Streams in the free text-box at the end of the submission page.
Yes, you can submit as many papers and panel proposals as you can manage. But please be realistic and leave time for other conference activities.
Do not worry too much about the findings/results. As long as the abstract clearly sets out other aspects of the research (research questions, research design, research methods, etc), you can be vague about the findings (e.g. simply stating that you will be presenting the findings of your analysis, without saying in the abstract what these findings are).
Yes, all types of saved submissions can be edited until the deadline.