The SER2017 Program Committee thanks for all the abstracts submitted to the 7th World Conference on Ecological Restoration. There were over 1,000 abstracts submitted.

Please note that in addition to oral and poster presentations, we are also inviting abstract submissions for short videos. Details are provided below in section 2.

For any questions, please contact us at: [email protected].

• Before You Begin
• Abstracts for Short Videos
• Preparing Your Submission
• Evaluation Process
• After Your Abstract is Accepted
• Cancellation Policy
• Important Dates
• Online Submission Form

1.  Before You Begin

Please carefully review the information here and in the sections below before submitting your abstract.

All abstracts must be submitted through the online form. This includes contributed oral and poster presentations, as well as presentations that have been invited for a symposium or workshop.

All abstracts must be submitted in English, the official language of SER2017. We will also ask that you deliver your presentation in English during the conference unless you have been invited to speak as part of a symposium or workshop being organized in Portuguese or Spanish. In this case, your presentation can be delivered in one of those two languages, but your abstract must still be submitted in English.

Submissions are limited to one contributed oral presentation and one contributed poster per person. There is no limit to the number of invited presentations an individual can submit in the event that s/he has been asked to participate in multiple symposia or workshops. Invited speakers are also free to submit up to one contributed paper and one poster in addition to any invited talks. There is no limit to the number of abstracts in which an individual can be named as a co-author.

All presenters will be required to register for the conference by Wednesday, 31 May 2017 to be included in the conference program. We will issue acceptance notices as soon as possible following the submission of your abstract so you can proceed in registering. Please note that you will need to register for the entire conference, as one-day rates will not be available.

Oral presentations may be scheduled any time during the conference, from Monday morning, August 28th through Friday afternoon, September 1st. Except under compelling circumstances, the Program Committee will not be able to accommodate special scheduling requests due to the large number of speakers and the cascading effect that any changes have on the rest of the program. By submitting an abstract, you are confirming your availability to attend during any of these days.

Oral presenters will each have 20 minutes for their presentation—15 minutes for the actual talk plus 5 minutes at the end for questions. Contributed talks will be organized into sessions based on a common theme.

Posters will be displayed for the entirety of the conference. Authors will have the opportunity to present their poster during their assigned poster session, to be scheduled. Guidelines for poster preparation will be available later. Facilities to your poster presentation will be provided onsite.  

2.  Abstracts for Short Videos

In addition to oral and poster presentations, we are also inviting abstracts for short, original videos. This is a new presentation format that has not been offered at previous SER conferences. Videos are intended to be a fun and engaging way to present information about restoration projects or research, and will be shown during the conference in a forum that allows for the widest participation possible.The following guidelines apply:

• Videos cannot exceed 3 minutes in length, including the title and credits.
• Authors are free to determine the content and format for their video, and we highly encourage creativity! Some examples include: a virtual site tour; demonstration of a novel research method or restoration technique; a narrated compilation of short clips; etc.
• These are not intended to be video presentations (i.e. a filmed talk), and we will not accept any such submissions.Video content should not contain advertisements or be heavily promotional in nature.

The same submission guidelines for oral and poster presentations (outlined elsewhere on this page)also apply to abstracts for videos—with a few modifications:

• While the abstract must be submitted in English, the video itself can be narrated in Portuguese or Spanish as long as there are English subtitles. We also highly encourage Portuguese and/or Spanish subtitles for videos produced in English.
• In addition to the formatting/content guidelines given below in section 3, abstracts for videos should also make clear what form the video will take (i.e. how it will be organized/edited/formatted).
• Finished videos will have to be submitted electronically by 16 July 2017. We will provide technical specifications at the time we notify you that your abstract has been accepted. Final acceptance will be contingent upon approval of your finished video by the Program Committee.
• Attendees are welcome to submit a video in addition to an oral or poster presentation.

3.  Preparing Your Submission

Please take note of the following guidelines as you prepare your abstract:

• All abstracts must be written in English. However, we do not recommend translating institutional affiliations and addresses into English.
• Abstracts must be directly relevant to field of restoration and should ideally emphasize new research results, cutting-edge developments or novel perspectives.
• Abstracts (and presentations) should be developed with an international audience in mind. They need to provide geographic context for the work being presented and should address how the work applies more broadly to researchers, practitioners, policymakers, etc. in other regions.
• Abstracts will be limited to a maximum of 250 words, in a single paragraph. They should clearly present a concise statement of the topic or issue to be discussed, the question or objective underlying the work that will be presented, and a summary of methods, key findings and conclusions. ABSTRACT SAMPLE
• All authors of the presented work should be listed in the order you would like them to appear in the conference materials. As the person submitting the abstract, we will assume that you are the presenting author. You will be noted as such in the conference program and will receive all correspondence regarding the abstract. As the presenting author, you must register for the conference by May 31, 2017 in order for your presentation to be included in the program.
• For invited abstracts (i.e. those forming part of an organized symposium or workshop), we will ask you to indicate the title of the session you’ve been invited to speak in and the organizer’s name. 
• For contributed abstracts, we will ask you to indicate up to three themes from the list (available at http://ser2017.org/themes.php), that most closely relate to your presentation. This will help us organize contributed talks into sessions.

Some additional notes about formatting:

• The information provided in your abstract will be reproduced in the conference program and book of abstracts exactly as submitted. This includes author names and affiliations as well as the main body of text.
• Please use proper capitalization throughout your abstract submission (for names and institutions as well as in the main body of text), and DON’T USE ALL CAPS.
• Please format your title using sentence case, and capitalize proper nouns/adjectives as well as the first word following a colon. 
  Example: Towards shrubland restoration on the Arabian Peninsula: The potential for large-scale restoration in the Middle East (please, do not insert a full stop in the title)

4.  Evaluation Process

The Program Committee will review abstracts and issue acceptances on a rolling basis throughout the submission period. Each abstract will be reviewed by a minimum of two committee members, with reviews being randomly assigned.

Abstracts will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• scientific and technical merit, with emphasis on new research results, cutting-edge developments or novel perspectives.
• clear relevance to the field of ecological restoration,with implications for restoration science, practice, policy, education, etc.
• broad applicability, with emphasis on drawing connections between lessons and insights from specific projects and programs to broader issues and trends.
• submission of a well-written abstract that clearly states the topic or issue to be discussed and summarizes major findings and conclusions.
  

​For each abstract, there are three possible outcomes of the review:

Accepted*: The abstract clearly meets the criteria outlined above and does not require any edits or revisions.

Needs correction: The abstract needs revisions and will be re-evaluated following the submission of an updated version.

Rejected: The abstract clearly fails to meet the criteria outlined above, as determined by the SER2017 Program Committee, and is not suitable for presentation during the conference.

*The Program Committee reserves the right to request that authors of contributed oral abstracts change the format of their presentation to a poster—depending on the material to be presented and/or room capacity considerations at the conference venue. In these cases, the Committee will make acceptance of the abstract contingent upon the requested change in format.

5.  After Your Abstract is Accepted

Registration: As stated in section 1 above, all presenters will be required to register for the conference by Wednesday, 31 May 2017 in order to be included in the conference program. One-day rates will not be available, and presenters are expected to register for the entire conference. Except under compelling circumstances, presenters who fail to register by the deadline will be excluded from the program.

Visas: Attendees traveling to the conference from outside Brazil are advised to consult their local Brazilian Embassy or Consulate for information about visa requirements. See this page for more: http://ser2017.org/visa.php

Scheduling: The Program Committee will meet in early June to schedule all oral presentations and finalize the program of sessions. Contributed presentations will be grouped by theme, and the Committee will make every effort to ensure optimal placement of each speaker. We will not be able to accommodate special scheduling requests except in the event of an oversight or scheduling conflict. Oral presentations may be scheduled any time during the conference, from Monday morning, August 28th through Friday afternoon, September 1st. We will post the detailed schedule to the conference website in late June or early July notifying speakers of when they will be presenting.

6.  Cancellation Policy

Please do not submit an abstract unless you are committed to attending the conference. Cancellations impose a serious burden and negatively impact the overall quality of the conference program. If extenuating circumstances force you to cancel your participation and you are unable to find a co-author or colleague to give your presentation on your behalf, we ask that you notify us as soon as possible at [email protected], so we can make any necessary changes in our planning.

7.  Important Dates

06 January 2017 - Abstract submission period opens
10 January 2017 - Proposal submission period closes
31 January 2017 - Final batch of proposals acceptances sent
1 February 2017 - Online registration opens
2 April 2017 - Abstract submission period closes
20 April 2017 - Final batch of abstract acceptances sent
31 May 2017 - Deadline for presenter registration