Proposal Submission Guidelines

Meme cat writing a SciPy proposal

Here are the instructions and tips for submitting a proposal to SciPy.

Instructions

Another meme cat writing a SciPy proposal. All cat-written proposals are welcome at SciPy.

Abstract

Your Abstract will appear in the online schedule and give attendees a sense of your talk. This should be around 100 words or less.

Description

Your placement in the program will be based on reviews of your description. This should be a roughly 500-word outline of your presentation. This outline should concisely describe software of interest to the SciPy community, tools or techniques for more effective computing, or how scientific Python was applied to solve a research problem. A traditional background/motivation, methods, results, and conclusion structure is encouraged but not required. Links to project websites, source code repositories, figures, full papers, and evidence of public speaking ability are encouraged.

Successful proposals in the past sometimes include a rough outline of what their talk will cover, if/how live demos will be used, and how their project/work fit in the ecosystem of tools in the scientific Python stack.

Notes The notes section of the CFP will not be made public like the abstract and description are. Use the notes section to include miscellaneous information that you think may be helpful to reviewers, or to make a note about how you expect your project to change between the time of submission and SciPy.

Format

You must choose whether to submit as a talk or a poster. Talks that are not selected will automatically be considered for a poster slot. Please note that a virtual-only poster is possible.

Paper

The form allows you to upload a paper. This is optional. You do not need to upload a paper in order to submit a talk or poster.

Tips for Submitting a Proposal

Yet another meme cat writing a SciPy proposal

The SciPy Conference is in awe of the work that is being done in the community. We receive many interesting and thought-provoking proposals but we have a limited number of spaces. Please take a look at our tips below to improve your chances of having a talk or poster accepted by the conference. In the unfortunate event that your proposal is not accepted, please keep in mind that you are welcome to give a lightning talk, book a room for a Birds of a Feather discussion, or talk to the Program Committee about displaying your work as a poster in lieu of a talk.

  • Submit your proposal early. You can continue to edit your proposal after submitting it up until the deadline closes. So you can submit your proposal draft and revise it in pretalx without penalty. Note: You can invite one co-author when you are drafting the proposal. Adding more than one co-author is only possible after you submit your proposal.

  • In your abstract, be sure to include answers to some basic questions: Who is the intended audience for your talk? What, specifically, will attendees learn from your talk? What problem are you or your tool solving? What need does it fill?

  • Ensure that your talk will be relevant to a broad range of people. If your talk is on a particular Python package or piece of software, it should useful to more than a niche group.

  • Include links to source code, articles, blog posts, or other writing that adds context to the presentation.

  • If you’ve given a talk, tutorial, or other presentation before, include that information as well as a link to slides or a video if they’re available. You can add this information to the “Notes” section.

  • SciPy talks are 25 minutes with 2-3 minutes for questions. Please keep the length of time in mind as you structure your outline.

  • Your talk should not be a commercial for your company’s product. However, you are welcome to talk about how your company solved a problem, or notable open-source projects that may benefit attendees.

Many of these tips are adapted from the PyCon Proposal Resources. Thanks PSF!