The format will be similar to previous SEFS meetings, with 7 plenary lectures addressed by internationally renowned scientists, poster presentations, and scientific sessions with 15+5 minute oral presentations run as 2 or 3 parallel sessions. The innovation for SEFS4 will be that some scientific sessions will contain oral presentations devoted to the themes introduced in plenary lectures, and each of these sessions will be concluded by a 30-40 min general discussion session, chaired by the respective plenary speaker.

As at the previous Symposia, both oral papers and posters are invited. Considering the time constraints, the number of oral presentations cannot exceed 90 when there are 2 parallel sessions (135 with 3 parallel sessions). Therefore, we might ask some authors to switch from oral to poster presentation if necessary. You are welcome to make suggestions regarding the session topic for your oral or poster presentation, however you should be aware of a possibility of your presentation being allocated to a different theme due to the time constraints.

Even though we shall start Monday morning with a welcome ceremony, the 1^st plenary lecture, and the 1^st and 2^nd poster sessions, you are kindly advised to arrive in Krakow on Sunday (or a week earlier if you intend to participate in the 2005 Congress of European Society for Evolutionary Biology organized at the same facilities of the Jagiellonian University: http://www.eko.uj.edu.pl/eseb/index.html). That will allow you to register and join us at the welcome reception in the Ancient City Hall to where we are invited by the President of Krakow. Even though we conclude Friday afternoon with 3^rd and 4^th poster sessions and closing session at 16³⁰, you are advised to stay in Krakow until Saturday to be able to participate in the Symposium dinner on Friday evening. You may also stay longer or take an Intercity to Warsaw (3 h) from where you should find a reasonable flight connection home or further opportunities for sightseeing (see A visit to Warsaw). If you are short of time, you will have a chance of seeing some of the unique sites of Krakow by joining the old town sightseeing tour on any or each evening on Monday, Tuesday and/or Thursday (see Sightseeing Krakow). On Wednesday there is an opportunity of seeing some interesting sites in the surrounding area (see Mid Symposium Excursions).

Oral presentations

Oral presentations should be planned for 15 minutes + 5 minutes scheduled for discussion. Since the number of oral presentations is limited due to the tight schedule, we may ask some authors to shift from oral to poster session. Preference for oral sessions shall be given to presentations that are based on sound science, aimed at testing scientific hypothesis, and depending on the general topic and scientific novelty. We suggest that purely descriptive data are presented as posters rather than in oral sessions. Facilities will be available for slides, overheads, and multi-medial presentations (PC with floppy disc, CD-ROM drive and USB-port, but with no zip drive or unzipping software).

Poster presentations

Posters should be prepared in A1 format (841 x 594mm; preferably portrait rather than landscape orientation). We also encourage Authors to make a sufficient number of A4 handouts of their posters, to be fixed and displayed together with the poster itself. This will enable participants to create their own collections of poster copies, that can be bound by the SEFS4 secretariat at the venue so that they can be taken home. Authors are kindly asked to be present by their posters during the respective formal poster sessions.

Student Prizes

Prizes will be awarded at the close of the meeting on Friday 26 August, for the best oral paper and the best poster presented by students. To be eligible for either prize, you must be the main author and currently registered as a BSc, MSc, or PhD student with a University or a College. Eligibility also extends to those who, although no longer registered as a student, have completed their studies within the last 12 months (since August 2004) and who are presenting the results of their studies rather than subsequent work. The rules for the award of students prizes will be published on the website at 15^th July and in the Symposium Programme.

Publication

It is anticipated that the seven plenary lectures will be published in a special issue of the Polish Journal of Ecology (http://www.cbe-pan.pl/PJE/PJE.htm) under a preliminary title 'Trends in Freshwater Ecology'. The plenary speakers and chairpersons for final discussions, are invited to submit their papers after incorporating any issues arising from the general discussion as they consider appropriate (up to 30 normalized typed pages). The seven plenary lectures will comprise about 60% of the special issue, and the remaining space will be offered to other contributions presented as oral papers. They would be submitted to the guest editor of the special issue or the Editor of the journal, Dr. Anna Hillbricht-Ilkowska (AHillbricht@post.pl) as short research papers (up to 10 normalized typed pages). Up to 20 short papers would be accepted after standard review and revision procedure.