Europlanet Science Congress 2021
Virtual meeting
13 – 24 September 2021
Europlanet Science Congress 2021
Virtual meeting
13 September – 24 September 2021

How to EPSC2021

EPSC2021 will be a fully virtual event. Taking into account the feedback and lessons learned from 2020 we have made some adjustments to the format for this year's meeting.

Materials to prepare as a presenter

Your abstract has been accepted and assigned to the appropriate scientific session.

As a presenter you are invited to prepare and upload two elements:

  1. Your video or poster presentation: this presentation is for asynchronous viewing by the conferences attendees and will stay accessible on the EPSC2021 website for one year. Video recordings should be maximum 10 minutes length (15 minutes for solicited authors) and posters should be in a screen-friendly format.
  2. The 1-slide for the 1-minute-1-slide live pitch (3-minutes-3-slides for solicited authors): this slide will be shown during the live scientific sessions as support for your 1-minute live pitch. The 1-minute-1-slide pitch is not a summary of your presentation, but rather a teaser to encourage participants to check out your presentation (video or poster) and engage in asynchronous discussions on Slack.
    Please check out the example for the live pitch by clicking here
    If you cannot deliver this pitch live, then please upload a video recording of your 1-minute-1-slide pitch instead.
    If you do not wish to deliver a pitch at all, then please inform the conveners. You can only deliver a pitch if you have uploaded your scientific presentation.

Live scientific sessions

Live scientific sessions are divided in three parts:

  1. Short introduction by the session chair(s);
  2. 1-minute-1-slide live pitches from the presenting authors, one after the other. The slides will be shown via share-screen by the session chairs, who will also invite the authors to speak to the audience at the appropriate time;
  3. Live Q&A with the audience, moderated by the session chairs, with options for spoken questions as well as through the chat function.

Session platform - Zoom

The platform that will be used for the session running is Zoom. The live scientific sessions will run in Zoom meetings, while several community events and keynote talks will be held as Zoom webinars. We strongly recommend that you download the Zoom client. Using Zoom through your browser has some limitations in terms of features and the stability of your connection. Your bandwidth must have a capacity of at least 1 MBits/s upstream and 2 MBits/s downstream to ensure a sufficient quality of your attendance. However, it is acknowledged that a number of organisations prohibit their staff from downloading the Zoom client; participating in the Zoom meetings will also be possible through a browser. The sessions are also streamed to a live session page, this way following the live scientific sessions is possible without accessing Zoom at all.

How to get to your session

  1. Find the active session of your interest in the programme (either via "Browse by session" or "Browse by day & time").
  2. Clicking on "Enter live session" will take you to the live session page including the streaming window.
  3. Enter the Zoom session using the green button "Enter Zoom Meeting". Please make sure your microphone/camera are off. Preferably install and run the Zoom app rather than running Zoom in a browser window.
  4. If you do not see the live-session buttons come up, it helps to "hard-refresh" your browser (i.e. override the cache copy): Ctrl+F5 for all browsers on Windows; Chrome for Mac: Command + Shift + R; Safari for Mac: Command + Option + R.
  5. Please be patient if pages take a little time to load, especially upon arriving at the conference. Live-session buttons will be up 10 minutes before each session.

Zoom setting for meetings

  • All live scientific sessions will be hosted as Zoom Meetings.
  • Everybody accesses the Zoom Meetings – conveners/chairs, authors presenting live pitches, and participants – at the start of the session.
  • A conference assistant will be present as host and will promote the conveners/chairs to co-hosts.
  • Presenting authors will unmute themselves and switch on their camera once the convener/chairs invite them to give their live pitch presentation.
  • The session chair will share their screen to show pre-uploaded and pre-recorded slides/presentations.

Zoom setting for webinars

  • A certain number of events (mainly keynote talks and community events) will be hosted as Zoom Webinars.
  • Speakers and conveners/chairs, i.e., panelists of those sessions hosted as Zoom webinars join via the personalised Zoom invitation email that they received by email.
  • Registered attendees that want to follow the Zoom webinar access the session via the programme and the "Enter live session" button as described above for the Zoom Meetings.
  • A conference assistant will be present as host and will promote the conveners/chairs to co-hosts.
  • Presenting authors will unmute themselves and switch on their camera once the convener/chairs invite them to give their presentation.

Slack channel

Each scientific session will have a dedicated channel on the EPSC2021 Slack. Authors and attendees will be able to interact on this channel during the entire conference at any time and discuss the presentations. The title, authors and link to each presentation will be pinned in the channel and should be used as a thread for the discussions related to the presentation. Please engage in lively and constructive discussions on Slack.

In case of any problems or questions, please contact media@europlanet-society.org.

Keynote presentations

Keynote presentations are delivered by invited keynote speakers. Keynote presentations will be followed by a Q&A session, using the dedicated function of the Zoom webinar in which attendees submit questions in writing.