BAPS Annual International Congress 2016

The 63rd Congress will be held in Amsterdam on 20th, 21st and 22nd July 2016.  The meeting will be held at the Beurs van Berlage building in the centre of Amsterdam.

Visit our new Congress 2016 website. http://congress.baps.org.uk

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FOR BAPS 2016

Abstracts are invited for the free paper sessions during the congress. If you have any problems with the submission process, please contact the BAPS office. You will be notified of your acceptance or rejection by 1st April 2016. We will be contacting you by email – therefore please ensure that we have your correct email address. The submitting author is responsible for keeping us informed of this.

1. The Deadline for submission is February 1st 2016 at 10.00am GMT. There can be NO submissions after the deadline.

2. Preparation for submission

• All abstracts must be submitted electronically
• The official language is English.
• The selection process will be blinded (author and institution removed), and an objective system used for marking. No identifying feature such as names of authors, hospitals, medical schools, clinics or cities may be listed in the title or text of the abstract. The names of authors and their affiliations (institutions) will be submitted on-line when you submit the abstract, but will be removed before the marking process
• Please put the title in capital letters
• Format: Abstracts should be written in four parts

(a) Aim of the Study
(b) Methods
(c ) Main Results
(d) Conclusion

• Abstracts must include data with clear descriptions of results and conclusions. For example, p values without data are not sufficient.
• When you enter the submission system for the first time, you need to log in as first time user. You will then receive an automatic email that contains the full instructions outlined on this web page.
• Each abstract should be a maximum of 300 words. The system will not allow you to add more words than this.
• You may attach one table or one figure to your abstract. Please make it clear in the main body of the text where you are referring to the Figure or text, so that the abstract scorers review the attachment. Abstracts with more than one table or figure will be rejected. Remember that the abstracts will ultimately be printed in the abstract book, which is A5 format. The text plus Table/Figure will be printed on a single A5 sheet, so if a Figure has many multiple sections (e.g. more than 4) or a Table is too complex, it will be too small in the printed version.

3. Submission Process

• Abstracts must be submitted for each form of presentation
• You will need to select which category your abstract should be submitted in and what type of presentation you are hoping to make. Abstracts submitted for consideration for oral presentation will be marked with a different system to those submitted for poster only, or video presentation/ novel operative techniques.
• If you are submitting more than one abstract you can use the same email address and password for each abstract
• Once you have registered on the system, you will be able to amend your abstract right up to the deadline. Just go to the submission page and follow the instructions. DO NOT RESUBMIT.
• If the submitting author cannot present the paper it is assumed that one of the co-authors will present. Please let the BAPS office know who the presenter will be.

If you withdraw an abstract after acceptance, or do not attend to present, without a valid reason then the senior author of the paper will be banned from submitting further abstracts to BAPS.

4. What to do if your abstract has been previously presented or published

Abstracts should only be submitted if they or their main content will not have been previously accepted for publication, published (paper or electronic) or presented at a national or international meeting prior to the commencement of the BAPS Congress. Presentation at one of the following means that abstracts should not be submitted: BAPS, AAP, APSA, EUPSA, IPEG, CAPS, PAPS, ISPR, AAPS, WOFAPS, American College of Surgeons (Surgical Forum), ESPU. If abstracts have been presented at a meeting other than those listed (e.g. a national meeting or a meeting of another specialty), this MUST be declared so that the committee can make a decision.
Submitting abstracts without declaring that they have previously been presented will mean that the senior author of the paper will be banned from submitting further abstracts to BAPS and /or IPEG for the next two years.
It is expected that the results section of the abstract represents original data by the authors, or a clearly stated systematic review/meta-analysis of the literature. BAPS considers plagiarism to be a serious breach of professional standards and authors found to have plagiarized the work of others can expect a ban and a report to their employing organisation.

5. Ethics

A statement regarding ethical approval (including approval number where applicable) must be included in all abstracts involving animal or human studies.

6. Scoring

The Scoring criteria for all abstracts submitted for oral presentation are as follows:

1. Relevance to Paediatric Surgery 0-3
2. Originality 0-3
3. Aim and/or Hypothesis (achievable, testable) 0-5
4. Methodology (soundness) 0-5
5. Results (quality, presentation) 0-5
6. Conclusions (supported by data, valid) 0-5
Total 0-26

For poster only, video presentations/ novel operative techniques, the marking will be as follows:

1 Relevance to Paediatric Surgery 0-3
2 Originality 0-3
3 Results/ Conclusions 0-5
Total 0-11

7. Criteria for rejection

• Material already published prior to the commencement of BAPS
• Material presented at an international meeting prior to the commencement of BAPS (see above for details)
• Study not ethical
• Word count exceeding 300 words or exceeding space allocated in the template
• Authors and/or institution name reported in the text.

8. Publication in the Congress edition of the Journal of Pediatric Surgery

The Journal of Pediatric Surgery will normally have first choice for publication for those abstracts which have been presented orally or as posters at the Congress. Authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to submit manuscripts electronically for consideration by the Publications Committee. Complete instructions for authors will be sent out with accepted abstracts with a submission deadline of 1st June 2016. A final decision will be made on acceptance/rejection during the Congress. All manuscripts which are accepted will be published in the BAPS Congress issue of the Journal the following year. Manuscripts will only be considered on the basis that they are original and not under consideration elsewhere.

9. Prize session

This year, there will be two prizes awarded for oral presentations. The Peter Paul Rickham Prize has been endowed by one of BAPS’ eminent founding surgeons, Peter Paul Rickham and it has been awarded since 1994 and is research/basic science based. The President’s Prize is a new prize instituted in 2013 and is clinically based. You may enter any paper for the prize session but it must be presented by a trainee. Papers for the PPR and the Presidents Prize are selected on the basis that they are the highest scoring papers submitted to the Congress. The marking criteria are the same as that for other papers. The judging criteria when the papers are presented are:

Originality 0-5
Scientific Value 0-5
Clinical Value 0-5
Quality of presentation 0-5
Overall Impression 0-5

Subject list for submission:

• NEC/Intestinal Failure
• Lower GI
• Oncology
• Urology
• General/miscellaneous
• Upper GI
• Hepatobiliary
• Thoracic
• Basic Science
• Trauma

Type of submission:

• Oral
• Oral/poster
• Poster only – including case reports
• Novel operative techniques – including videos

10. Trainees free paper session

The trainee free paper session is open for a select number of presentations by trainees on a topic relevant to paediatric surgery, trainees or training. These must be presented by a trainee during the session which forms part of the trainees program on Wednesday 20th July 2016.
Abstracts on trainee or training related topics are particularly welcome and will be prioritised as will submissions made exclusively for the trainee free paper session. If you are a trainee submitting to the main congress and your abstract is not selected it will be considered for the trainee free paper session with the exclusive submissions in an independent marking process that will include an assessment of relevance to trainees/training.

Submit your Abstract