Conference & submission guidelines

Papers are allotted twenty minutes with fifteen for discussion. A discussant reads every paper in the session in advance and opens the discussion. Slides are optional and rarely improve a paper; if you use them, send them forty-eight hours ahead so they are loaded before the session starts. Sessions begin and end on time.

Abstracts are stripped of identifying detail and reviewed by two members of the programme committee against four criteria: clarity of the research question, adequacy of the method, quality of the evidence, and contribution to the field. Seniority, institution and nationality are not among the criteria and are not visible to reviewers.

Selected conference papers are invited to develop into full articles for a forthcoming issue of whichever title fits their scope. An invitation is not an acceptance: the full manuscript goes through the same double-blind review as any other submission, and some invited papers are declined.

Any paper drawing on research with human participants must be able to produce documented ethics approval on request. Papers presenting identifiable data without evidence of consent are withdrawn from the programme, including after acceptance.

All submissions are screened before review. Substantive use of generative tools in drafting must be disclosed in the cover sheet; undisclosed use discovered after acceptance results in withdrawal. Tools used for language editing alone need not be disclosed.

International participants receive a formal invitation letter for visa purposes on acceptance. A limited number of travel bursaries are available for postgraduate presenters based outside Islamabad; apply at the same time as the abstract, not afterwards.

Withdraw as early as you can so the place can be reallocated. Presenters who accept a slot and do not appear without notice are not considered for the following year's programme.