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Programming Policies

The governing policies on the presentation of papers, development of symposia, and registration for ACS national meetings are found in the attached excerpts from the ACS Constitution, Bylaws, and Board Regulations. Within a given division, there may be additional policies (such as division membership, submittal of a long abstract or preprint, etc.).

Program Content

  • Each Division determines its own guidelines for development of symposia and acceptance of contributed papers
  • National award winners may choose the division program in which the award address will be given unless specified in the Award description.

Presentations of Papers

  • Rules for papers (oral and poster presentations) are the same: no paper shall be presented at a national, regional, divisional, or other major meeting unless its title and author(s) appear on the program for the meeting.
  • ACS policy does not require an abstract to be submitted; only title and author(s) names are required. However divisions may require abstract submittal.
  • No paper by a chemical scientist residing in the United States who is not a member of ACS shall appear on the program of a national, regional, divisional, or other major meeting unless it is a joint paper with one or more ACS members, or unless the author has been invited to present the paper at a symposium organized by a division.
  • Certify non-member speakers are important to the success of the symposium in writing
  • Paper title and author’s name must appear in the official program to be presented. The official program is published on the ACS web, approximately 2 months prior to the meeting.
  • Oral papers can be presented only once during a national meeting except in Sci-Mix.
  • No companies can be accredited with presenting papers, only individuals.
  • The Society assumes no responsibility for statements or opinions expressed in papers.
  • The ACS President has the authority to exclude a paper from the program.
  • It is ACS policy to encourage presentation of papers with pharmacological and physiological aspects by qualified clinical investigators.
  • The Divisions are urged to exclude from their programs, statements recommending procedures for the treatment of disease or announcements of any “cures” not confirmed by competent medical authority. If a contributed paper contains such information, the Division must require and review a complete manuscript of the talk prior to accepting the paper.
  • Staff will notify speakers of their abstract acceptance and scheduling of their papers. Program chairs are responsible for notifying speakers that their abstract has been rejected.
  • Award addresses, with a few exceptions, are given at the Spring National Meeting. Alternate scheduling requires advance approval.

Transfer a Paper

Program chairs can transfer papers from one symposium to another within their division up until the final program is due to the ACS. However, program chairs can only transfer papers from one division to another if the division you are transferring to is still open to the public for submissions.

Withdraw a Paper

Authors may withdraw their paper prior to the national meeting by sending the request to the symposium organizer, program chair, ACS Staff, or withdrawing the abstract themseves in MAPS. Papers withdrawn in MAPS prior to the final program deadline will not appear in the printed technical program. Papers withdrawn after the final program deadline will appear in the printed and Web versions of the technical program as withdrawn and will retain its original final paper number.

Scheduling of the Program

  • No paper can be presented unless its title and author’s names appear in the official program.
  • The scheduling of technical sessions must occur within the pre-assigned division room allotment
  • The programming day begins at 8:00 AM and ends at 5:30 PM.

Publication of the Program

  • The online/app program is the official technical program of the ACS National Meeting & Expo
  • The complete listing of the papers for a symposium will appear only under the heading of the primary sponsor.   Cosponsors will be listed under symposia where applicable.
  • Only functions sponsored by official ACS units (divisions, committees, secretariats, local sections, staff offices) will be announced in the meeting program. Requests for inclusion of other events must be approved by the Executive Director.
  • Acknowledgement of financial support for symposia will not be included within the technical program. The program booklet will contain an acknowledgement section. Program chairs can enter financial support by notifying ACS Staff. Divisions may also arrange for signs (using the supplemental request form) by their meeting rooms acknowledging such support.

Definition of Terms

Cosponsored
Two or more Divisions sharing organizational work and/or financial responsibility and benefits. Divisions must decide which one of them (the primary co-sponsor) will collect abstracts, schedule papers and submit the program.
Preliminary Program
A summary in grid format of the technical program in Chemical & Engineering News and onsite program that shows the symposia titles and their scheduled day(s). The preliminary program also contains registration, housing, and travel information and forms as well as the non-technical events (committee meetings, ticketed events, and workshops) associated with the meeting.
Technical Program
The online technical program is the official ACS National Meeting program.  The online program is published approximately 2 months prior to the meeting and is continually updated with the most up do date program information.

Publication of Abstracts

  • Abstracts are copyrighted by the Society as a collection. Individual authors retain copyright of their papers.

Registration of Speakers

  • Postdoctoral candidates do not qualify for student registration.
  • With the exception of 50-year and unemployed members, every speaker must have a paid registration. Divisions should set and administer their own policies for paying or reimbursing sponsored speaker registrations.
  • Divisions will be billed by category for the speakers for whom they request (guest/invited speaker) registration. There is a special one-day registration fee for non-chemical scientist speakers for whom divisions may pay the registration fee. This special registration fee is not available to ACS members.
  • If a division pays for one-day registration for a speaker, the speaker may convert that registration to a full week registration by paying the difference between that fee and the appropriate full week fee.
  • If a presenting author does not register for the meeting and make their presentation , the abstract will be considered withdrawn and removed from the meeting program, technical programming archive and CAS database.

Recording of Papers

It is the policy of ACS that photographing of slides and/or taping of presentations at ACS national meetings is prohibited unless permission is obtained from the individual presenters, the division program chair and the ACS national meetings staff. Release forms are available from the national office or onsite in the Operations Offices.

Audiovisual Equipment & Meeting Room Arrangements

  • Standard meeting room equipment will be provided by National Meeting budget. Specialty equipment can be rented as requested with a guarantee of payment from the division. Billing to the division requires the written authorization of a division officer or the program chair.
  • Standard Meeting Room Equipment is: LCD projector, appropriately sized screen, laptop computer, electric pointer, lavaliere microphone, and standing podium.
  • All technical session rooms will be set theater style in accordance with the ACS Standard Meeting Room Diagram. Each poster presenter will be provided with one side of a 4’x8’ posterboard for the display of materials.

Finances

  • The ACS Board of Directors sets registration fees for National Meetings.
  • Cosponsorship of symposia - with other organizations will not entitle them to a share of the meeting revenues.
  • The payment of an honorarium to speakers is strongly discouraged.

Sci-Mix

  • Participation is optional and at the discretion of the program chair.
  • Each division is limited to 20 poster papers or the equivalent of 10 % of its total accepted papers, whichever is greater.
  • Papers presented as posters or orals elsewhere may be presented a second time at Sci-Mix, but the division shall not receive any additional allocation for duplicate papers.
  • If a division does not have a poster session, they may present up to 20 papers or the equivalent of ten percent of its total oral papers, whichever is greater, in poster format at Sci-Mix. The Division shall not receive any additional allocation for duplicated papers presented at Sci-Mix.
  • No paper may be presented a second time in any venue other than Sci-Mix. The layout of the event should be alphabetical by division.

Room Assignment Priorities

1. Technical sessions; 2. Board meetings; 3. Committee meetings; 4. Division Committees & workshops; 5. Social & ticketed events.

Session Presider Reports

  • The presiding officers are requested to fill out a half-day oral session report online to note no-shows and session attendance. 
  • The session report form URL will be shared directly with each presider prior to each meeting.