British Ecological Society Annual Meeting 2026

We are pleased to announce the upcoming annual meeting of the British Ecological Society (BES). Submit your abstract now to share your work with Europe's largest gathering of ecologists!

Posted Aug 22, 2026

By Amahury J. L. Díaz

3 min read

Key Dates

Abstract submission deadline is 17:00 (BST) Wednesday 2 September.
You may edit your abstract online until the above date.
You will be informed of the result of your application during week commencing 21 September.

To guarantee your place in the programme, every successful abstract submitter must complete registration by 17:00 (GMT), Tuesday 3 November. Your abstract will be withdrawn if you do not register by this date. You will be informed about the outcome of your abstract proposal before this deadline. Please make sure to use the same email for submitting your abstract as the email you have used on your MyBES account to ensure we can match up your abstract and registration.

If you have any questions about abstract submission, please contact our events team.

Abstract information and guidance

We offer four types of presentations at BES2026:

In-person oral presentation
In-person poster presentation
Online on-demand oral presentation – uploaded to the virtual event platform in advance of the Annual Meeting
Online on-demand poster presentation – uploaded to the virtual event platform in advance of the Annual Meeting

We understand that planning is challenging and uncertain, but if it is unlikely you will attend in person, please do not submit an in-person presentation to ease some pressure on the event organisers.

In-person oral presenters will have the opportunity to upload a pre-recorded version to the conference app and instructions will be given nearer the time.

The BES Annual Meeting Programming Committee have provided some guidance for writing an abstract submission for the event.

When writing your abstract, consider the following guidance:

Abstracts are submitted online and should be no longer than 150 words. All presentations have equal status, so there is no difference in the standing of oral or poster presentations. Poster presenters have the opportunity to speak in-depth and for a longer period of time with delegates interested in their work.
Our Annual Meeting is highly popular and we want to ensure as many delegates can present as possible, therefore please do not submit more than one abstract per presenter. We will only accept the first abstract you submit. You will be able to log in and edit your submission up until the deadline.
The title of your presentation should ideally include the organism and/or system of study and the key message of the research. This will help us identify the best session for your presentation. Please use sentence case and do not use full caps for your title or abstract.
Structure the abstract to communicate (i) background information/context of the research (ii) overall research gap(s) and question(s) (iii) a brief overview of the methodology (iv) result(s) or expected/potential results / hypotheses for works in progress and (v) a conclusion of the wider implications and/or novelty of the research.
Allocate a good amount of your abstract to development of an impactful introduction (background, research gaps and questions) and conclusion (wider implications and/or significance).
Avoid overly complex and long sentences and avoid jargon while maintaining required technical language of the research.
Less is more – revise with the help of peers, colleagues and supervisors.
Generative AI can be used to help you refine your draft abstract, improve your use of English language and enhance clarity. You should not use generative AI to write your abstract in full. You are responsible for the content and must check that the quality of your abstract reflects your research and the above points before submission.

Topics

We have a two-tier classification for abstracts and presentation sessions. We will try to allocate your presentation to your first choice, but this is not always possible. The first, TOPICS, classifies your work generally into major themes. These are intentionally broad, but please get in touch if you don’t think your area is represented. The second, SUBTOPICS, qualifies your work using a set of key words that allow us to group similarly focused talks within sessions. Please only use the OTHER categories if your work very clearly does not fit into the listed topics.