Abstracts

Format and eligibility  

Abstracts must be submitted in English and should not exceed 300 words.  

Abstracts should follow the format:  

• Background  
• Methods  
• Results  
• Conclusions  

Abstracts must not have been published or submitted for presentation to any other national or international meeting.  

Submission    

Abstracts must be submitted via the online system by 2 September 2026 at 17:00 (CEST). Only abstracts submitted online by the deadline will be considered. No changes to abstracts will be accepted after the submission deadline. Detailed instructions are available in the online submission system. For questions regarding abstracts, please contact info@edctpforum.eu. 

Evaluation procedure  

All submitted abstracts will be reviewed by the Programme Committee and external experts, in collaboration with Global Health EDCTP3. Selection of abstracts will be based on the following criteria:  

• Abstract quality  
• Relevance to the Forum theme and Global Health EDCTP3 activities  
• Significance of the reported results.  

The corresponding author will be notified of the outcome of the review in December 2026.    

Please note that the final decision on whether the abstract is accepted and, if so, whether it will be for an oral or poster presentation will be made by Global Health EDCTP3 and the Programme Committee. It is expected that presenters will attend in person. Poster presenters will be allocated a time slot where they will present and address questions in person at the Forum. 

Presenting authors whose abstracts have been accepted will receive further instructions for presenting their abstracts. 

Publication

Global Health EDCTP3 intends to publish the accepted abstracts in a Forum programme booklet and as a journal supplement. A declaration of agreement to the publication’s terms and conditions will be requested at the time of acceptance of your abstract.

Scholarships

Global Health EDCTP3 will support transport, accommodation and visa costs for a limited number of early and mid-career investigators with high-ranking abstracts, who have been accepted to present an abstract at the EDCTP Forum 2027. Access to all Forum sessions and meals, as indicated in the Forum programme, is also provided. This support is intended for investigators with limited research funding. Selected recipients will be the primary authors of oral or poster presentations.

Scholarship applications are submitted via the abstract submission system when uploading your abstract (see more instructions below). 

Scholarship application

The submitting author needs to indicate whether they wish to apply for a scholarship. If so, the submitting author must upload a single PDF file containing the following supporting documents:

I) Up-to-date CV and concise summary of the applicant’s career to date

II)  Motivation letter addressing the following topics: 

Future career plans and how attendance at the Forum will assist in developing the applicant’s career

Benefit of attendance to the applicant’s institution

III) Support letter from the Head of Department. This letter must be printed on the institutional letterhead.

Please note that we can only consider complete applications. 

Scholarship election procedure

Selection of scholarship recipients will be based on the following criteria:

• Abstract and scholarship application quality
• Relevance to the Forum theme and to Global Health EDCTP3 Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda
• Significance of research results
• The potential benefit of attendance to the applicant, his/her colleagues, institution, and wider community
• Geography and gender, as the Forum aims to maximise participation across sub-Saharan Africa and ensure gender balance.

Recipients will be notified by December 2026.

Abstract submission system

The abstract submission system will take you through the process of submitting your abstract. At any time in the process, you can click the ‘Save as Draft’ button to save your incomplete submission and return to it later. Once all required sections have been completed, you can submit your abstract by clicking the ‘Submit’ button.

Title

The title cannot be longer than the specified number of words (word limit: 25).

Category

Abstracts should respond to one of the following subcategories:

A. Advancing biomedical innovations
A1 – Advances in vaccines & neutralising antibodies development

A2 – Advances in drug development and tackling antimicrobial resistance

A3 – Advances in diagnostic development

A4 – Coinfections and comorbidities

B. Knowledge translation and implementation science for public health impact

B1 – Implementation science and national health research systems

B2 – Maternal and child health

B3 – Climate crisis, pandemics/epidemics and health

B4 – Policy development and equitable access

C. Research capacity strengthening, equity and ethics

C1 – Strengthening the ethics, regulatory and pharmacovigilance framework in Africa

C2 – Innovations in capacity strengthening, including digital technologies

C3 – Partnerships and alliances to enhance coordination, collaboration and cooperation

C4 – Ethics and human rights, including community engagement and good participatory practice in research

Affiliations

Enter the author affiliations: Affiliation, Department, City, Country. Each affiliation is given a number that can be used again in the "abstract authors" section to link an author to a specific affiliation.

Abstract authors

Enter the details for each author: Title, First Name, Last Name, Organisation, Position, Affiliation (this refers back to the previous section where each affiliation is given a number)

Abstract upload

Guidelines on submitting the abstract

• Abstracts must be submitted in English.
• Abstracts must not exceed a 300-word limit. The word limit relates only to the text of the abstract and does not include title, subheadings, authors and author address.
• The abstract should not include the title, authors or affiliations; only the abstract text.
• Images, tables or graphics are not to be included.
• Abstracts must be free of typographical and grammatical errors.
• Standard abbreviations may be used for common terms only. Otherwise, any abbreviation should be given in brackets after the first full use of the word. Abbreviations may be used in the title, provided the name in full is outlined in the body of the abstract.
• It is the presenting author’s responsibility to ensure that the title, author and affiliation details (full name of institution, place, country) entered in the abstract submission site are complete and correct, and exactly as they should be published on the abstract and all Forum materials.
• The funding source for the research presented must be provided.

Permission from all authors

By submitting an abstract, you confirm that you have permission from the authors to submit this abstract on their behalf and that all authors have read and approved the final version of this abstract. The content of the abstract cannot be modified after the submission deadline (unless changes are requested by Global Health EDCTP3).

Resubmission policy

Abstracts must not have been published or submitted for presentation to any other national or international meeting. Any abstract which has been published previously can only be submitted if there are new methods, findings, updated information or other valid reasons that can be provided by the author.

In case preliminary or partial data in your abstract have been published or presented previously, the author is requested to indicate the details of the conference, meeting or journal and the reason for submitting this abstract to the EDCTP Forum.

Clinical trials

The presenting author confirms that any data or results presented in the abstract pertaining to clinical trial(s) are derived from clinical trials that are registered in a registry that is a primary register of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) or in ClinicalTrials.gov, which is a data provider to the WHO ICTRP.

Ethical research declaration

The presenting author confirms that the research presented in this abstract has been conducted in accordance with the protocol approved by the institutional and/or national ethics committee, and in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical Association. The Programme Committee may contact me to clarify ethical aspects during the abstract review.

Presentation preference

You will be asked to indicate your presentation preference in case your abstract is accepted. Please note that the final decision on whether you are accepted for oral presentation or poster will be made by Global Health EDCTP3. Presenters are expected to attend in person.

Consent

If your abstract is selected, you consent to the publication of your surname, first name, and affiliation in the programme, which will be made available on the EDCTP Forum 2027 website, in the mobile app, and printed programme at the Forum. Selected poster presenters also consent to the publication of their surname, first name, and affiliation together with their poster at the Forum venue. If you wish to withdraw your consent, please send an email to EC-GH-EDCTP3-DATA-PROTECTION@ec.europa.eu.

Global Health EDCTP3 aims to publish abstracts accepted for oral or poster presentations at the EDCTP Forum 2027 as a supplement in BMJ Public Health. Accepted abstract presenters are contacted at a later stage to confirm their approval to include the abstract in the publication.