Presenter Portal

Timeline visually showing the important dates for presenters

Presentation Uploads

Abstracts

Abstracts for both Showcase presentations and Showcase Exhibitions. Upload Abstract

01 JUN 2026 deadline

Print Content

Posters and any other physically printed content. Upload Print Content.

25 MAY 2026 deadline

Digital Content

Slides and any other digital content. Upload digital content.

10 JUN 2026 deadline

Community Showcase

We encourage all presenters to also participate in the Community Showcase.

Reading Room

This space holds published works of our PGRs for audiences to read and be inspired, it is a quite space to step away from the Festival buzz whilst enjoying PGR achievements.

We welcome papers and books where Warwick PGRs have been co-authors.

Love Letter to Your Thesis

PGRs reflections on their research journey and their emotional responses contribute to our community display in the Festival Exhibition.

PGRs can participate anonymously with this communal display.

Contribute to the Community Showcase via the submission form.

Important Information

We request abstracts from all Festival presenters (Showcase Presentations and Showcase Exhibition), please see advice below on abstract writing for interdisciplinary audiences.

Please arrive 15min before your session is due start and sign-in at the Festival registration desk.

If you are attending earlier sessions at the Festival, please inform the member of the Festival team that you are a Festival presenter (Showcase Presentations and Showcase Exhibition).

Showcase Presentations

Immediately before the allocated session, we request please come to the front of the lecture theatre (OC0.03). There will be seats allocated for all presenters in the front row for the duration of the session. After presentations, there will opportunity for the audience to engage with presentations and ask questions.

Showcase Exhibition

We encourage all Showcase Exhibition presenters to be present at both Exhibition Sessions (11am-11.45am and 2.15pm-3pm) to engage with audiences regarding their work and respond to questions. Please be aware that the Exhibition will be open throughout the Festival.

Poster dimensions - A0 portrait or A1 landscape,.

Presenter Training

The Doctoral College is offering online training for Festival Showcase Presenters, both Showcase Presentation & Exhibition.

Sign-up for presenter training workshops.

Presentation Skills

The session will cover:

presentation skills - voice projection and delivery
body language
timing a speech
addressing a non-expert audience

There will also be an opportunity to have a practice run.

This session is open and valuable to all live presenters but there will be focus on Three Minute Thesis^TMformat.

Workshop - Tue 02 Jun 2026 1pm-3pm

Practise Session - Wed 10 JUN 2026 10am-11.30am

Poster Design

A good poster allows us to communicate our research quickly and clearly. A poor poster will put off our intended audience. So how do we make our poster clear, impactful AND tell everyone what we know? To start we will evaluate a series of posters in order to decide what works which of them are clear, engage us with their research and memorable. We will also examine two major design styles to see what will work for us and our research. We will look at further techniques for poster design and presentation and discuss how to tailor this to your research area. PowerPoint is one of the simpler methods of Poster design and is therefore the package that we will be suggesting you use.

Workshop - Thu 21 MAY 2026 4.30pm-6pm

Presenter Resources

Course: Researcher Development Online (RDO) | Moodle@Warwick

LinkIN Learning Courses

The Value of Conferences and Events

The Power of Visual Thinking

Visual Communication

Prepare to Present

Deliver a Great Presentation

Great Speaking Skills are a Must Have

Better Powerpoint Slides

Presenting Your Ideas Effectively

Presentations with Greater Impact

Communicating Science Matters

Abstract Writing

Crafting Effective Conference Abstracts: A Guide for Postgraduate Researchers

Purpose and Function

Conference abstracts serve a dual purpose within academic settings. First, they enable selection committees to evaluate submissions for inclusion in the programme. Second, they allow attendees to navigate parallel sessions and identify presentations relevant to their interests. Developing proficiency in abstract writing is therefore essential for researchers seeking to disseminate their work—whether at conferences, in peer-reviewed journals, or through research repositories.

Core Characteristics

A well-constructed abstract typically ranges from 100 to 250 words and functions as a condensed representation of your research. Three qualities determine its effectiveness:

Accuracy — faithfully representing the scope and findings of your work
Relevance — connecting to the conference theme and audience interests
Engagement — generating sufficient interest to draw appropriate readers or attendees

Achieving this compression while maintaining substance often proves more challenging than producing the full paper itself.

A Structural Approach

One useful technique involves drafting your complete paper first, then distilling each section into a single sentence. These sentences form the skeleton of your abstract. Rather than concatenating them verbatim, use them as scaffolding—reshaping and connecting the ideas into flowing prose. This method preserves logical coherence between abstract and presentation, preventing the introduction of claims absent from your actual work.

Content Expectations

Unlike promotional blurbs designed to intrigue through omission, academic abstracts should comprehensively summarise your contribution. Key elements include:

The research question or problem addressed
Your methodological approach
Principal findings or arguments
Implications and future directions (where applicable)

Your title warrants equal attention, as it works alongside the abstract to frame reader expectations.

Abstract Structure Guidance

The Doctoral College recommends using the ICUR Method for abstract writing for interdisciplinary audiences.

The ICUR Method is based on research by Day and Peters (1994), "Quality Indicators in Academic Publishing", Library Review, 43, 7

The ICUR Method

FIRST, consider four key questions about the research project:

The WHY? The WHAT? The SO WHAT? The NOW WHAT?

THEN, create the final abstract by compiling the responses to the key questions, considering the following through the editing process.

Is anything missing that was integral to the project? Perhaps there’s an aspect of the research that didn’t fit neatly into the four answers. Now add any important elements that were missed.
Has the combination of the four responses produced some repetition? If so, streamline the abstract and remove any extraneous material.
Are some transitional phrases needed between the answers to the questions? Think about how to guide the reader through the abstract and the research process. Abstracts should inform but they can also be enjoyable for the audience to read. Add transitional words, phrases, or sentences to clearly connect the different aspects of your project.
How accessible is the abstract to an interdisciplinary audience? Subject-specific language is used in all disciplines, however, at an interdisciplinary conference, it’s important that the work is accessible to all. Reduce the use of jargon where possible and seek advice outside the field to check the abstract for intelligibility.
Don’t forget about the title! Titles are important. At the conference, a great title will attract audience members to the presentation and increase their engagement with the research. And, beyond the conference, a good title enhances the discoverability of the research online, increasing the chances of being cited by other scholars. Make sure the title reflects the project accurately and includes key words that can help others discover the research.

The WHY?

The WHY: Why are you researching this topic?

This question asks you to think about why you are researching a specific topic and what makes it important. Consider what type of contextual information would be needed for an undergraduate in a different discipline to understand your study. This may require you to locate it within a particular research field and outline what is known in the academic literature about the issue to date. If there is a research problem or a gap in knowledge or literature that has motivated your work, you should describe it here. You should think deeply about what your specific research question is and outline it. In other words, use this introductory section to provide your reader with the context of your research, where it fits within the existing academic literature, and identify the question your research is addressing. Put simply, provide a rationale for why your project is worthwhile.

We suggest you answer this question in approximately 75 words.

The WHAT?

The WHAT: How did you research this topic, and how did you discover?

Your answer to this question describes the research that you’ve undertaken. What did you do and how did you do it? If you were one member of a larger research group, what was your contribution to the project? Did you employ a particular methodology or analyse data using a theoretical framework of some kind? Make sure that the reader understands what specific materials you’ve examined during the course of your research (for example, literature, pre-existing survey data, scientific specimens). Here, you can also outline any research tools used in your study (for example, software, equipment, analysis techniques). Importantly, your answer to this question also reports the results of your research. Describe the research findings you discovered in undertaking your research project and what you will discuss at the conference (you want to ‘hook’ the audience in, without giving everything away). Were you able to answer your research questions, and did you discover any incidental, but important, findings?

In other words, use this section to tell the reader what you did, how you did it and what you discovered.

We suggest you answer this question in approximately 75 words.

The SO WHAT?

The SO WHAT: What do you findings mean, and why do they matter?

You’ve reported the results of your research study in answer to the previous question. Now you need to tell the reader what these findings mean and why they matter. How do they make a significant contribution to knowledge in your field? How might they impact wider society? It’s here that you can provide answers to your research questions, if you have used them.

In other words, use this section to communicate your overall argument and why this research is significant to the reader. This is the ‘aha!’ moment, when the reader comes to understand the true value of your research.

We suggest you answer this question in approximately 50 words.

The NOW WHAT?

The NOW WHAT: What comes nest?

Finally, think about the future implications and relevance of your research. What comes next? Have your discoveries opened new lines of research enquiry? How might others—in or outside your discipline—respond to your research and progress it? Are you planning on developing further studies in this area, or translating it into practice in some way? Is there a group of people who could benefit from your research? Mention your plans: are you considering founding a startup, or will you communicate your findings to practitioners in your field, for example?

In other words, use this concluding section to share the potential future applications of your research with the reader. Leave them in no doubt of the relevance of your project.

We suggest you answer this question in approximately 50 words.