Call for Abstracts

As part of the Lao Uplands Initiative, the Department of Agricultural Land Management (DALaM) under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has hosted the international conference ‘Lao Uplands: landscape of opportunities’ which will take place in Luang Prabang, Lao PDR on 12-14 March 2018.

We invite experts and practitioners representing government and policy, private sector, civil society, science and other actor groups to present and share their knowledge and experiences related to the sustainable development of the Lao Uplands. Only through multiple actor participation and engagement, innovative transformative pathways can be discussed, designed and put into action.

The conference will focus on how to achieve a sustainable impact; working on evidence for action, trade-offs & synergies, governance and pathways for transformative changes. The conference will be modular in structure, alternating between plenary sessions with speakers who will lay out their vision on challenges and opportunities for sustainable development, and various breakout sessions (posters, videos, workshops) ranging from highly varied topics. To bridge the thematic discussions in the plenary sessions and the final session on the transformative pathways, we highly welcome concrete case studies presentations.

For any inquiry, please contact: laouplands2018@gmail.com

The call for abstract is now closed.

Individual poster presentations

Participants can present their work related to one of the three themes of the conference.

The organizing committee will select contributions relevant to each topic that will be presented as rapid oral presentation (3min) during the plenary sessions to engage the discussion with participants.

For selected abstract, contributors will be requested to submit a poster according to the specifications provided here below. Posters will be exposed during the conference and will be presented by their authors during thematic posters sessions.

Abstract guidelines

Abstracts should consist of a short description of your poster. They should be no longer than 400 words.

Title: Short attention-catching titles are the most effective. You should limit the length of the title to no more than 12 words.

Authors and affiliations: This information is shown at the top of the poster. Any organizational logos are often shown here as well.

Keywords: between 5 and 10 keywords are normally required and they should most closely reflect the content of the paper.

Body of the Abstract: clear statement of the topic, the method used, and also a concise summary of the findings and their significance for potential users.

Providing this information in a timely manner will allow us to promote the poster session in our conference program booklet.

Poster guidelines

The poster should be A0 format, and portrait layout. Participants will be responsible for developing, printing, and bringing their own poster to the conference.

  • The main consideration to keep in mind is readability. Keep the following in mind:
    • A text color that contrasts well with the background color will help the words stand out. Black text on a white background, for instance, works well.
    • Present information clearly and simply. People will be less likely to read your poster if it has too many words. Consider using infographics, colored graphs or photos in place of long numerical tables.
    • Spell check and proof-read before printing a final version.
  • Keep the layout from being too crowded. Bullets are a great way to make a simple and clear point. Do not attempt to put too much information on your poster.
  • As all posters will also be printed in A4 size for distribution to conference participants, please check the readability of your poster on a A4 size printing.

Oral poster presentation guidelines

During a poster session, there will be a brief time to present your poster to other conference delegates. Each presenter will be given 3 minutes to summarize their poster, with 2 additional minutes allotted for questions and answers. In order to accommodate all presenters, these guidelines will remain quite rigid, so we ask that you keep to the point. As with the printed poster, keep everything simple and short. Three minutes is enough time to present key points, but not enough to go deeply into long tables or complex graphs.

Problem to submit your abstract? See our 9 steps tutorial.