Food Protection Trends

COMMENTARY from the Executive Director
August 2008

“ You can work your way onto the IAFP Annual Meeting program ”

By David W. Tharp, IAFP Executive Director

Many times we are asked in the months leading up to Annual Meeting, “How can we get someone from our company on this year’s program?” Because of the way our meeting is structured with scientific presentations, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to find your way onto the program in the four
to six months prior to the IAFP Annual Meeting. This is by design though. This month, I want to
review how you can work your way onto the IAFP Annual Meeting program.

There are two “styles” of presentations taking place at our conference; symposia and technical presentations. I will discuss each of these separately since they are developed, reviewed and approved for presentation under two very different systems.

First, we will look at symposia. Under this heading, there are regular symposia covering three hours (normally, six 30-minute presentations), there are short sessions extending one and a half hours or two hours and there are roundtables, normally lasting either one and a half hours or two hours. Most often, a symposium is developed through one of our Professional Development Groups (PDGs) that meet at Annual Meeting. PDGs are groups of Members formed around a topic of interest (dairy, applied methods, meat and poultry, retail food safety and quality, etc.) who come together to discuss their specific topic in greater detail, face-to-face.

Some PDGs communicate throughout the year and others do not. It is fairly dependant upon the chairperson or other active (or not so active) members. IAFP does not require a certain number of communications or messages to be sent per year, but we do encourage PDG chairpersons to
keep in contact with their members. It is helpful to have some communication take place prior to the PDG meeting at Annual Meet-ing so the PDG members have an idea of what topics are important to discuss and what topics may make a good symposium for the next Annual Meeting.

Now, back to the PDG meet-ings at Annual Meeting. So, as previously stated, many of our symposia are developed by our PDGs. If you have an area of interest and expertise in that area; to become a part of the symposium covering that topic, it helps if you are “in the room” when the symposium is being developed! This would be the number one way to be included ina symposium (get actively involved with one or more PDG). Symposia can be developed by an individual and submitted for consideration, but the majority of our symposia do come from the PDG system.

The due date for symposium proposals is on Tuesday of the Annual Meeting. This is a preliminary, but required step to final acceptance (in February). Usually, there are between 50 and 60 symposia
submitted for consideration. The Program Committee reviews each submission carefully considering the merits of each, but they can only tentatively accept between 24 and 30 for further development. The organizer typically will receive instructions from the Program Committee on what to do to strengthen their proposal between Annual Meeting and the February meeting of the Program Committee. Many times, proposed symposia carry a common theme and two or more may be asked to combine to form an even stronger session. Let’s now shift to technical presentations. For technical papers presented at Annual Meeting, authors must submit an abstract following guidelines set by the Program Committee. These instructions are posted on the IAFP Web site for easy access. Abstracts must be well written, submitted on or before the deadline (January 20, 2009 for IAFP 2009), and report on original, unpublished research.

This is definitely the easier way to gain a place on the program. In recent years, there are five- to six- hundred technical abstracts submitte d for the Program Comm-ittee’s review. Specific criteria are applied to the submitted abstracts by the review committee; each abstract is individually reviewed by up to six members of the Program Committee. A decision is reached on each abstract whether to accept it for presentation or reject the proposal. Submissions are reviewed in early February in preparation for the Annual Meeting.

There are two forms of tech-nical papers that can be presented; either poster presentations or 15-minute oral presentations. Because of the limited number of rooms we have available for symposia and oral presentations (technical), there are only 70 to 80 oral presentations scheduled. The remaining technical papers are presented in poster format.

So, as you can see, a lot of preplanning enters into the current year’s Annual Meeting program. It is nearly impossible to come onto the program other than through the two established systems. Having said that, there is one exception to enter the program after the February Program Committee meeting. That is through a “late breaking session” covering a topic of general, overall interest to a large number of people that developed after the February Program Committee meeting. This year, it was the Salmonella outbreak that fit the definition. Because our Annual Meetings are very “science-based,” presentations must be peer-reviewed and accepted to be on the program. This is different than some “industry-driven” or commercially motivated meetings, but ours is a system that works to IAFP’s benefit. Through years of implementing this system, we have
become the “world’s leading food safety meeting” and we are certainly proud of that accomplishment!