#RSCPoster: how does it work?

#RSCPoster is an inclusive event that connects researchers from around the world. Therefore, participants can share their posters on any social media platform to engage in discussion with members of the community. Prizes will be awarded based on participation on LinkedIn, so you must register and post your posters within the 24-hour event on LinkedIn to be eligible.

• Make sure you are familiar with LinkedIn before the event starts
• Optimise your poster for LinkedIn – see the FAQ below for information on formatting
• Check out the advice from previous winners @TABarendt 1 and 2, @Jin_Xuan_, @alan_enciso in Spanish, @JeffreyYWMak 1 and 2
• And the advice in Chemistry World from previous organisers and judges on what makes a good poster presenter

#RSCPosterPitch is a 60 second video presentation to accompany your main #RSCPoster, just like you may stand next to your poster at a physical conference and give a quick overview. The amount of description on a poster is limited; giving a quick video overview allows you the chance to expand on why your research is interesting and explain this further. This can be done in any style, any language (although note that the Subject Chairs will be judging in English, so you might want to give an English version if possible) from a regular speech to a special song, just so long as it’s not more than 60 seconds.

#RSCPosterPitch is optional, so you don’t have to submit a pitch for your poster to be eligible for prizes. Find out more about #RSCPosterPitch here.

Yes. Copyright owners have the exclusive right to copy their work and to issue copies of their work to the public, and it is an infringement for anyone else to do so without the copyright owner’s permission. If you are reproducing material contained in a Royal Society of Chemistry publication (journal articles, book or book chapters) you may do so providing that you fully acknowledge the original Royal Society of Chemistry publication and include a link back to it. If you wish to include material that has been published by another publisher, you will need to check how the publisher/copyright owner of the third party material wishes to receive permission requests. Information on this can be found on our Permission Requests page under “Use of third party material in our publications”.

Subject to the usual conditions outlined in the License to Publish, being a part of the LinkedIn conference will not prevent you using some of the information included in your poster as part of an article in a Royal Society of Chemistry journal. Please note this policy varies by publisher and if you intend to submit your research for publication elsewhere after the event, you should check the individual policy for that journal and publisher.

You can choose any dimensions for your #RSCPoster, the important thing is that the text and figures are clear for people to read and understand. Using Microsoft PowerPoint, we found a text size of between 12-16 were clear to read when saving an A4 slide as a JPEG and uploading to LinkedIn. Using an A0 template, the text needed to be between 50 and 60 to be legible. You can use any software you like to create your poster, as long as the image you upload is clear for others to read. We recommend testing your poster on LinkedIn before the conference to make sure you are happy with your image.

There are a number of resources available to increase the accessibility of your #RSCPoster to different user groups! Below are some suggestions and links to resources:

• When you post images you have the option to compose a description of the images so the content is accessible to people who are visually impaired. The image descriptions have a character limit so we suggest including the title in this image description, and put further details or explanation about the poster content in the comments.
• The Royal Society of Chemistry has guidelines for inclusive communications which may be useful to keep in mind when designing your poster. The UK Home Office have also produced useful posters on how best to design accessible posters for different user groups.
• If you want to test how accessible your #RSCPoster is to people with different types of colour blindness, this website provides a colour blindness simulator.
• Uploading a link to a PDF of your poster, alongside your image, may enable the use of screen readers for the visually impaired.
• We encourage you to capitalise words in hashtags, use simple language and explain any acronyms, to help increase accessibility to non-native English speakers and those from a different or non-scientific background.