New Research Poster Call for Papers
AACAP's Program Committee invites you to submit abstracts of original investigations for consideration in AACAP's 2025 Annual Meeting, October 20-25, 2025, in Chicago, IL. Before beginning a submission, please thoroughly review the Instructions and AACAP Rules in the tabs above for the Annual Meeting.
AACAP is planning for an in-person meeting in Chicago and as such, will require all presenting authors to be in-person in Chicago for their poster presentation. As you prepare your submission, please make sure all presenting authors are willing and able to attend in person.
All submissions must be peer-reviewed by the Program Committee. Topics may include any aspect of child and adolescent psychiatry that advance the field and can be used to improve the well-being of children and their families.
Submission Requirements
All New Research Poster submissions require a Proceedings Abstract and learning objectives. Please read the Instructions tab to learn more about what goes into a Proceedings Abstract. Because of the AACAP requirement for time spent understanding ethical issues, presenters are also encouraged to identify any relevant ethical issues related to their submission topics for discussion.
The Program Committee welcomes and encourages submissions from students and trainees, but requires that these submissions be reviewed by a senior faculty member or other senior mentor prior to submission.
All potential presenters and authors must complete a financial disclosure/conflict of interest form. This is a REQUIREMENT for all authors of all submissions. The submission will be rejected if these disclosures are not received.
All submissions are accepted as is and we expect presenters to present what was originally accepted. The designated presenting author(s) are expected to attend the Annual Meeting. Please check airfares and hotel costs before you submit to ensure that the presenting author(s) will be able to attend the Annual Meeting if the submission is accepted.
All posters and materials should be in English; however, we expect that 15-20% of the attendees will be from outside of the United States. To facilitate effective communication, the Program Committee strongly suggests that participants who do not use English as their primary language have their submission materials, posters, and/or slides reviewed in advance by colleagues with an excellent command of the English language. If you would like assistance with your submission, please email meetings@aacap.org.
Thank you for your attention to these instructions.
Prior to submitting a proposal, all submitters must agree to the below rules and regulations.
Content Addressing Ethical and Inclusive Clinical Education
AACAP is deeply committed to advancing mental health access and quality care across populations. We support training and practice approaches that help clinicians provide effective, person-centered, and contextually informed care for individuals from a wide range of backgrounds and life experiences.
We strongly encourage presenters to consider including content that examines variations in prevalence, diagnosis, or treatment across varied cultures, groups, and communities — or to explore other meaningful ways to integrate principles that promote inclusion and ethical care into their presentations. This may include inviting presenters with a range of perspectives, incorporating insights from individuals with personal or community experience, or drawing from the setting of Chicago to enrich the session content in ways that reflect AACAP’s mission.
If such information is limited or not included in a presenter’s work, we ask that speakers acknowledge these gaps and highlight the need for continued efforts to better meet the needs of diverse communities in research and practice.
Content Validity Statement
AACAP’s CME and Program Committees expect that the educational content of your submission is fair and balanced, and that any clinical content that is presented supports safe, effective patient care. All recommendations for patient care should be based on current science, evidence, and clinical reasoning, while giving a fair and balanced view of diagnostic and therapeutic options. All scientific research referred to, reported, or used in support or justification of a patient care recommendation must conform to the generally accepted standards of experimental design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation.
If your poster explores new and evolving topics or treatments that may have less evidence base, please identify that content in your submission and explain how the presentation will present a balanced, objective view of that content, including a range of perspectives.
Disclosure of Financial Relationships
All potential presenters and authors must complete a disclosure of financial relationships form. This is a REQUIREMENT for all authors of all submissions. The submission will be rejected if these disclosures are not received. Lack of disclosure may jeopardize AACAP's ability to provide CME credits. These disclosures will be listed online, in the Program Book, and the Book of Scientific Proceedings. The Program Committee monitors disclosures at every session. Should you need to make changes to your disclosures after June 5, 2025, email meetings@aacap.org.
Employees of Ineligible Companies
Employees of ACCME-defined ineligible companies or owners of stock/equity in privately held ineligible companies may not speak in any session regarding the ineligible company’s line of products, except New Research Posters and the Research Pipeline program (which do not offer CME credit). The ACCME defines an ineligible company as "any entity whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients." The ACCME does not consider providers of clinical service directly to patients to be ineligible companies. For questions regarding this rule, please contact cme@aacap.org.
Ethics
Authors are expected to conform to accepted ethical standards of not submitting original research findings in multiple conferences or journals. Information that has already been presented or accepted for publication should not be submitted. Authors uncertain about their compliance with this rule should contact meetings@aacap.org.
Limit on Submissions
An individual presenter cannot be listed on more than five (5) submissions of any type, including a maximum of two (2) posters. Additional submissions beyond this limit may be rejected.
An individual may be listed as an author on as many submissions as necessary if they are not presenting. Please review the submission roles and responsibilities to better understand the difference between a presenter and an author.
Please keep in mind the number of submissions you are listed on from the February 2025 Call for Papers deadline.
Operating Principles For Extramural Support of AACAP Meetings and Related Activities
Click here for the most recent version of AACAP's Operating Principles for Extramural Support of AACAP Meetings and Related Activities. These are the guidelines that govern all AACAP meetings.
ORCID iD
AACAP is now able to collect and publish ORCID iDs. An ORCID iD is a nonproprietary alphanumeric code that uniquely identifies an academic author. It is a 16-digit code, in the format: 0000-0000-0000-000X. Publishers use it to unambiguously attribute any published work to the correct authors. ORCID is a not-for-profit association of publishers and academic organizations that maintains the central registry of these personal identifiers (ORCID iDs) and associated public profiles for authors in academic publishing. Please visit https://orcid.org/ for more information.
ORCID iD is collected during the "People" step of the submission (click on 'Edit Person' to add this information).
Policy on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted Technologies
When submitters, presenters, presenting authors, or authors use artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in any aspect of the work reported in the submission and/or the development of submission materials, these individuals should:
All submitters are asked to disclose the use of AI in Step 1 of the submission form. The Program Committee will take the use of AI into account when evaluating the proposal and may ask for a formal disclosure statement to share with the learners. Program Committee members are not permitted to use AI during the review process and all submissions will remain confidential.
Scheduling and Preliminary Program
AACAP does not generally honor requests to schedule presentations on specific days. In submitting, authors assert availability to present in one of six poster sessions on any of the following four days during the Annual Meeting: October 22-25, 2025. Individuals who are accepted for multiple presentations may be required to find substitutes for themselves due to scheduling conflicts.
Upon acceptance of the presentation, information will be sent only to the presenting author(s) to indicate acceptance, provide registration materials, and provide any additional information on the presentation. It is the presenting author(s)'s responsibility to communicate this information to all co-authors.
The schedule for accepted New Research Awards Posters will be available in early August 2025.
Travel Reimbursement
AACAP does not pay for travel or hotel expenses for Annual Meeting presenters. All Institute presenters receive an honorarium. No other presenters receive honoraria for the Annual Meeting.
Review Decisions
All review decisions of the Program Committee are final. All acceptance and rejection letters will be sent via email in early August 2025. Review feedback will be provided upon request.
Registration Fees
All presenters (member or non-member) are required to register for the meeting and pay registration fees. AACAP offers a reduced Presenter fee for Presenting Author(s) only (there is a limit of up to two presenting authors on a poster). Submitters should inform co-presenters of these policies.
Satellite Symposia
Satellite Symposia are not allowed at AACAP's Annual Meeting. Please contact AACAP's Development Department at 202.966.7300 x113 for a copy of the most current corporate sponsorship guidelines and/or sponsorship opportunities.
Student and Trainee Submissions
AACAP highly encourages and supports program submissions from early-career investigators and presenters, defined as those with bachelor's-level degrees, students, current trainees (residents, fellows, and post-docs), and those within 5 years of completing residency or fellowship training. AACAP does require that presenting authors who meet this criterion should indicate this by answering the “Early Career Investigator, Student, and/or Trainee” question in Title, Category & Learning Objectives of the application
The Program Committee requires that all Student/Trainee applications be reviewed and approved by a senior co-author/mentor prior to final submission. Presenting authors should enter the name of the senior reviewer in Title, Category & Learning Objectives as well.
Visit AACAP's website for medical students and residents for complete details about all of the Annual Meeting awards and programs for this group.
NEW RESEARCH POSTERS are the format of choice for data-rich research or clinical reports. Posters that have been accepted in the past have been hypothesis driven, not just descriptive. They have included data tables, data graphs, and suitable statistical tests. AACAP will not accept submissions that do not include complete data analysis, even if completion is expected by the October meeting.
In addition to a traditional poster, you will have the opportunity to be considered for one of two specific Poster programs at the Annual Meeting: the Data Blitz or Pipeline program. Please see below for specifics about each of those programs. If you wish your poster to be considered for one of these programs, please indicate which one when you submit your poster.
NOTE: Submissions not selected for the Data Blitz or Pipeline will still receive full consideration for acceptance as New Research Posters.
GUIDELINES
A Poster submission should follow these guidelines in order to be considered by the Program Committee for the 2025 Annual Meeting program:
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
Each submission for a New Research Poster should include the following items:
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Literature reviews may be submitted for consideration. We will prioritize reviews that use formal methods to synthesize data. Please consider the guidance for JAACAP Instructions for Authors. Please follow the PRISMA checklist for abstract submission. Though a poster is an excellent stepping stone to publication, please also consider the increasing importance of registering your review.
AACAP encourages presenters to consider unique, less traditional formats for poster presentations. For example, consider formatting a poster highlighting take-home points (conclusions) of the study while providing methodology and data presentation in a less central manner. This format is likely to enhance the experience for those attending poster sessions. For an example of a novel approach to developing posters, please view this video.
In addition to a traditional poster, you will have the opportunity to be considered for one of two specific Poster programs at the Annual Meeting: the Data Blitz or Commercial and Industry Pipeline program. Please see below for specifics about each of those programs. If you wish your poster to be considered for one of these programs, please indicate which one when you submit your poster.
NOTE: Submissions not selected for the Data Blitz or Commercial and Industry Pipeline will still receive full consideration for acceptance as Posters.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
If accepted, the Poster’s primary author(s) will present the data in a graphic form on an 8 ft. long by 4 ft. high poster board or smaller. Up to ten (10) co-authors may be added to the Poster submission, but there can only be two (2) presenting authors that present. These two (2) presenting authors are the only two that qualify for the speaker registration rate.
Acceptance of a New Research Poster for presentation is an honor, and it holds the same status as any other Annual Meeting presentation. In addition to offering an opportunity for clear and detailed presentation of the data, there is a greater opportunity for interaction and discussion between the author and interested attendees.
DEADLINE
New Research Poster submissions must be submitted online by June 5, 2025. There can be no exceptions. Notification of acceptance is made in early August via email to the primary author(s) of the poster.
This deadline will be enforced. The submission page will close at 5:00 pm Eastern, June 5, 2025, and late submissions cannot be accepted. Incomplete submissions will be automatically rejected.
DATA BLITZ AND COMMERCIAL & INDUSTRY PIPELINE SUBMISSION OPTIONS
The Data Blitz is a 1.5 hours-long session during the Annual Meeting that allows early career investigators with compelling pilot data the opportunity to present their work within a structured symposium format, including engagement with senior researcher discussants. Investigators interested in consideration for this option, in lieu of a traditional poster presentation, should check the appropriate box in the submission form (Step 1).
The Commercial and Industry Pipeline is a 2 hours-long session during the Annual Meeting that provides an opportunity to present the findings from recently completed industry or other commercially sponsored trials within a structured oral presentation format. Topics may include, but are not limited to: new pharmaceutical, device, diagnostic, and biotechnology data. Submissions accepted for the Commercial and Industry Pipeline will be presented within a structured symposium format that includes the opportunity for formal questions, answers, and commentary from senior discussants. Investigators interested in consideration for this option, in lieu of a traditional poster presentation, should check the appropriate box in the submission form (Step 1).
NOTE ABOUT CME CREDIT
CME credit is NOT provided for attendance at a Poster session or the Commercial and Industry Pipeline session. However, any source of funding for studies presented must be disclosed with presenters’ conflicts of interest in the submission and included on the final poster. Data Blitz presentations are eligible for CME credit.
STUDENT AND TRAINEE SUBMISSIONS
AACAP highly encourages and supports program submissions from presenters with bachelor's-level degrees, students, and current trainees (residents, fellows, and post-docs). The Program Committee requires that all Student/Trainee submissions be reviewed and approved by a senior co-author/mentor prior to final submission.
WHAT IS A PROCEEDINGS ABSTRACT?
A "Proceedings Abstract," not exceeding 2,000 characters in length (not including spaces, approximately 350 words), is required for all New Research Poster proposals. These abstracts should describe the objectives, methods, results, and conclusions of the research being presented and will be published in a supplemental issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry that is published in October 2024. It must be organized using the following four headings:
START YOUR SUBMISSION
AACAP will accept up to approximately 400 Posters this year. All Posters must have submitted a proposal by one of the two deadlines above to be considered for the scientific program at the Annual Meeting. To submit a Poster for consideration, select “Begin a Submission” at the top or bottom right-hand side of this page.
Questions regarding Posters can be directed to can be directed to meetings@aacap.org.
The deadline for submissions has been reached.
Resuming or Revising a Submission
Once you have submitted step 1 of your submission, you will automatically receive an email that includes a password-protected hyperlink. You can resume or modify your submission up until the submission deadline by clicking on the hyperlink in that email. For help in submitting an abstract online, e-mail technical support.
If you have already completed Step 1 -- and you wish to resume, edit, or withdraw that submission -- you can do so online up until the submission deadline. You can view your abstract even after the deadline. If you can find the confirming email mentioned above (from aacap@confex.com) then you will have found a direct link to your submission. If you remember the abstract ID# and password, enter those codes below.
What is the absolute latest that I can complete my submission on the online submission site?
For late New Research Poster submissions, the site will be shut down at 5:00pm ET on June 7, 2023.
What do I need to include in my submission?
New Research Poster submissions must include a proceedings abstract. Other requirements for New Research Poster submissions are included on the Instructions tab.
How do I know if my submission is complete?
The last step for all of the submissions is to confirm that all of the information is entered correctly and check the box indicating your agreement with the Rules and Regulations. Once your submission is complete, the presenting authors will receive a confirmation email as well.
I completed my submission, but now want to make a change. Can I?
Changes can be made to submissions until the June 7 deadline. Use the log in information from your confirmation email to return to the submission and make changes.
What is a Proceedings Abstract?
A "Proceedings Abstract" is the abstract that describes the objectives, methods, results, and conclusions of the research being presented.
What is the Proceedings Abstract used for?
The Proceedings Abstract is the document that the Program Committee will use to evaluate your submission. See the explanation of the Proceedings Abstract on the Instructions tab. If your poster is accepted, this is the abstract that will be listed in the AACAP Annual Meeting Book of Scientific Proceedings, which will be published in a supplemental issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in October 2025 that is distributed to all Annual Meeting attendees.
How many characters are allowed in the Proceedings Abstract?
The Proceedings Abstract is limited to 2,000 characters not including spaces and headings. The title of the abstract and names of the authors are not included in this character count. Proceedings Abstracts should be organized around the following headings: Objectives, Methods, Results, Conclusions.
How will authors enter their disclosures?
All authors financial disclosures must be submitted by the June 7 deadline. If the primary author submit the abstracts, he/she must also submit the disclosures for each author before the submission will be considered complete. Authors will have the opportunity to review their disclosures and contact information immediately after the submission deadline to confirm the accuracy.
Am I required to submit my demographic information?
Speakers and presenters are not required to submit their demographic information in order to be considered for the AACAP Annual Meeting program. However, as AACAP continues to focus on strengthening the diversity of the field of child and adolescent psychiatry, we encourage you to share as much as you are comfortable sharing with us. If a speaker prefers not to share their demographic information, they should select "Prefer not to say" from the drop down menus.
When will I hear whether my submission was accepted?
For submissions completed for the June deadline, acceptance and rejection emails are sent in early August.
Are satellite symposia allowed?
Absolutely not. Participation in a satellite symposia or other unapproved scientific events will result in disqualification from the meeting. All events MUST use the Call for Papers submission process to be included in the Annual Meeting.
Can I make scheduling requests?
Please email your New Research Poster scheduling request to meetings@aacap.org with specific dates and reason for your request by June 30, 2023. AACAP cannot guarantee that they can accommodate your request but will make its best effort to do so.
Do I have to be a member of AACAP, or a child and adolescent psychiatrist to submit?
No, anyone can submit a New Research Poster proposal for AACAP's Annual Meeting.
Will AACAP pay for the hotel or travel expenses of my VIP non-member presenting author?
No. AACAP does not pay for hotel or travel expenses for submitters.
Can a student, and/or Trainee submit to the New Research Poster Call for Papers?
AACAP highly encourages and supports program submissions from presenters with bachelor's level degrees, students, and current trainees (residents, fellows, and postdocs). Presenting authors who meet this criterion should indicate this by checking the "Student/Trainee Submission" box in Step 1 of the application. The Program Committee requires that all Student/Trainee applications be reviewed and approved by a senior co-author/mentor prior to final submission.
What health and safety precautions will be taken in Chicago?
The health and safety of AACAP's attendees is our top priority. We will continue to monitor a variety of health and safety factors and will determine exact health and safety protocols closer to the meeting.
Can I present virtually?
Accepted posters will be available online but presenting authors must be in person in Chicago to present.
Can I reuse materials in a submission that I've already presented somewhere else?
Information that has already been presented or accepted for publication should not be submitted. Authors are expected to conform to accepted ethical standards of not submitting original research findings in multiple conferences or journals. Authors uncertain about their compliance with this rule should contact meetings@aacap.org. If you make changes or updates to a previous presentation, that is acceptable to submit for presentation.
Who can I call with other questions?
For technical support with the online submission site, call customer service at The Conference Exchange at 401.334.0220. For questions about the content of your submission or the review process, contact a member of AACAP's Meetings Department at 202.966.7300, ext. 2006 or email .