Hi. I need your opinion on something. I know it is not ethical to submit the same paper to different conferences but I am not sure if it applies to the following: I am going to submit an abstract for a poster to be presented at an international conference (so it may not even get accepted). In the meantime I received an invitation to present at a smaller conference in UK. Because of the way things are going, I can only talk about the same results of the same event. As one of them is going to be a poster and the other is a paper, would it be ok to present the same thing at these two different events? Thank you in advance.

it probably isnt allowed under some small print somewhere but unless you are publishing earth shattering results i doubt anyone would care. many academics i know will present at small conferences in the lead up to a big one to gauge opinion on the work and see if there are any obvious flaws which need to be fixed.

As I understand it, it's ok to present the same data at more than one conference BUT the crucial thing is not to have the same data published in more than one place. This happened to me last year, I presented at a large conference and the abstracts were published in a journal. I later presented the same data at a small national meeting but I specifically asked that the abstracts be excluded from the journal supplement resulting from that meeting (as they'd already been published).

When I say 'it's ok', I mean that as Jewel said, it's generally accepted. Usually the regulations for submitting an abstract for presentation at a conference will say something about the data not having been previously presented or published.

Thank you for your replies. Very useful.

I think Ann is right - you can present the same info, but you shouldn't publish the same

Thanks all. I contacted both. One will publish the selected papers and the other "might" publish if they get funding. I am so confused now.

You can ask one of them (i.e. the least prestigious of the two!) not to publish your abstract.

Thanks Ann. So from your answer I assume that I won't automatically enter myself into any agreements, if my paper gets selected and I accept to present it.

It depends...if one is a large national or international meeting, you may find that they put together the abstract book (which may be a supplement to a journal) ahead of the conference in which case you'd need to act now. On the other hand, if it's a small meeting, you may be asked at the meeting if you would like your abstract to be published at a later date. Your best bet is to ask someone (your supervisors?) who is familiar with how your meetings work or else to contact the meeting organisers.

Re: agreements

Was there any 'small print' when you submitted the work? Anything about not having presented or published the data prior to the meeting? TBH, this is usually implied anyway if not deliberately spelled out. If you are worried, talk to your supervisors. If you are really worried, there is always the option of withdrawing your abstract from one of the meetings.

BTW, I'm not suggesting that you do need to be worried! I'm guessing that it's the smaller conference that may not publish the results anyway? In which case I doubt there'll be a problem if you ask them not to.

Hi Ann. Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. I haven't submitted anything yet. I am still undertaking the sub-project that the paper is going to cover. I wanted to know in advance if it is safe to submit to both; if not what alternatives I could consider etc. You've been extremely helpful. As you suggested, I will ask my supervisor too. These days I don't hear from my supervisors very much, they don't reply any of my emails and never there when I call. One of them is lovely and so helpful but I have already bothered her with so many things (and she is my external supervisor, only appointed for limited time). Therefore I wanted to ask to you guys about your advice.

... I've read my original post and now I understand why it sounded like I've already submitted. The small UK conference is run by some people from my industry and they asked me about the sub-project I am currently working on. After few emails back and forth, they said they were happy to add me to the programme for paper presentation. Basically, I need to answer sooner than later. I don't want to put the chance of presenting at the international conference that I'd like to submit an abstract to jeopardy by presenting at this one. But anyway, I'll shut up now because what you said earlier makes sense.

If I were you, I'd say great thank you to the UK paper presentation and also say that if it's all right with them, can the abstract not be published (other than in the meeting literature) because you are hoping to also present the data at an international meeting.