BWB 2016: Call for Submissions

Share Your Knowledge. Highlight Your Work. Promote Innovation.

NatureServe invites Network members, our partners from federal and state agencies, corporations, and other conservation-focused institutions to submit proposals for plenaries, symposiums, workshops, panels and presentations.

This year’s conference takes place in beautiful Puerto Rico, so we are particularly interested in proposals that are pertinent to the Caribbean and Latin America. And as always, we encourage your proposals to enhance collaboration and promote innovation.

Submit Your Proposal
Submission Deadline: November 20, 2015

Here are some suggested topics/themes to guide your proposals:

General

Biodiversity Information
Conservation Assessment
Conservation Planning
Working Groups/Training
Fundraising/Communication/Marketing/Capacity Building

Special Topics

Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Communities
Coastal and Marine Conservation
Caribbean and Latin American Conservation Collaborations
Climate Change Adaptation
Innovative Data Collection
Protected Areas
Sustainable Resource Management

If you have other ideas for a session, please contact Don Kent.

Planning and Submitting Your Proposal

What type of session is best for me?

Sessions at Biodiversity Without Boundaries typically fall into five types:

Symposiums - Several speakers discuss a topic before and with an audience. Typically beginning with short presentations by the speakers. Symposium proposals should be submitted by the organizing individual, and include a list of confirmed and invited speakers.

Workshops – Workshops emphasize interaction and the exchange of information among the participants. The participants are actively engaged in problem-solving, interacting with tools, and/or creating action steps related to a topic. Workshop leaders might open the session with a brief oral presentation, but primarily serve as facilitators to the interaction among participants and the progress of the session. The key to a successful workshop is to have a clearly stated goal of what you would like the workshop to generate—for example, new ideas about how to solve a particular problem, or feedback on the functionality of a particular tool—and enough background information available for your participants to readily understand the issue. Workshop proposals should be submitted by the host/moderator.

Panels – A relatively small group of people brought together to discuss, investigate, or decide a particular manner. Differs from a symposium in that the panel has a desired outcome. Panel organizers are responsible for identifying, recruiting, and organizing the panels. Please submit just one proposal for the entire panel that provides the overall topic and a list of panelists (both invited and confirmed).

Presentations – Typically an individual showing, describing, or explaining their work or an idea to an audience. Biodiversity Without Boundaries presentations will be held to 20 to 30 minutes, including questions from, and discussion with, the audience. We recommended that the presentation be limited to 10 to 15 minutes to ensure interaction with the audience. A moderator will keep presenters on schedule.

Posters - Posters provide a summation of a topic that can be scanned, read, and/or re-read by participants anytime during the conference. Posters are highly effective for presenting results - such as of field studies, research projects, development plans, etc.—and high-level views of emerging issues, but can address any stage of a project or idea. Here are some sites that offer poster-design tips:

Many sessions are accompanied by a visual aid, such as a PowerPoint. Here are some sites that offer guidance for preparing effective visual aids:

File Logistics

The computers in the session rooms will be Windows XP-based PCs with Microsoft Office 2010, including PowerPoint and Windows Media Player. All presentations will be uploaded by conference staff onto conference laptops in each session room; personal laptops cannot be used for presentations. (Instructions for naming your file and providing it to conference staff will be emailed to presenters.)

Macintosh Users: To convert an Apple Keynote presentation to a PowerPoint presentation, follow the instructions at eHow; refer to your software's help documentation for converting other Mac presentations to a Windows-capable format. Please make sure that all inserted pictures are either JPEG or PNG file-types. Quicktime (.mov) files are an acceptable video format.

Poster Format and Display

Posters should be no larger than 30" x 40" (76cm x 101cm), with either portrait or landscape orientation. Should you require more space, please contact Dorina Sepulveda.

Posters will be displayed on easels we provide—no mounting is necessary. NatureServe will provide the necessary fasteners.

You must register to attend at least one day of the conference for your poster to be displayed. Poster authors should plan to be near your posters to talk with attendees during the breaks.

Posters will be recycled at the end of the conference. If you would like to retain your poster, please notify us when you register to make arrangements to retrieve it or have it sent to you at your expense.

Submitting a Proposal

The more information, the better! In order to give your submission proper consideration, please include as much information about your proposal as possible. We make every effort we can to include all appropriate submissions.

You may be asked to collaborate with others on a plenary, symposium, workshop or panel, or alternatively to present your work as a poster.