Faraday Discussions

• 2-3 years before the meeting: proposal approved
• 2 years before the meeting: venue and date selected
• 18-24 months before the meeting: meeting announced
• 12-18 months before the meeting: programme developed
• 9 months before the meeting: oral abstract submission
• 4-5 months before the meeting: paper submission
• 2 months before the meeting: programme finalised
• 4-5 weeks after paper submission: optional publication of paper as an Accepted Manuscript
• 10 weeks before the meeting: poster abstract submission
• 1 month before the meeting: standard registration
• 1 month before the meeting: circulation of papers as pre-prints
• Within 2-3 days of the meeting: proofs of presented papers circulated for correction
• Within 2-3 days of proof corrections being returned: publication of Advance Article version of record
• 1 month after the meeting: collation of general discussion remarks
• 5 months after the meeting: publication of Faraday Discussions volume

Faraday Discussions cover rapidly evolving science. While the process of abstract writing, paper writing and rigourous review inherent to each meeting takes time, the result – fully reviewed, extensively discussed, carefully edited journal publication – is highly valued by our authors. The flexibility of the Faraday Discussion format also allows speakers, as they write their paper, to trace the evolution of the science as it develops in new and exciting directions.

We welcome proposals for new Faraday Discussion meetings in rapidly evolving areas of the physical sciences. If you have an idea for a topic and would be willing to act as the scientific committee chair, please get in touch with the RSC Office here to discuss the requirements.

Following this initial discussion, we will ask you to complete and submit a Faraday Discussion Proposal Form, to enable the Faraday Standing Committee on Conferences (FSCC) to evaluate your proposal in detail with a view to ensuring a high-quality meeting. As part of this process, it is common for FSCC to request revisions to your proposal.

You may submit your proposal at any time by emailing your completed form to the FSCC Secretary. While there are no official calls or rounds, FSCC meets three times per year (typically in February, May and September) and will evaluate new and revised proposals received by the Secretary no less than two weeks before each committee meeting. Adhering to these deadlines and submitting revised proposals in good time will help ensure that your proposal is evaluated promptly, and the meeting consequently takes place in a timely manner.

There is the opportunity on the form to request a preferered date for the meeting. This should typically be two to three years out, to take account of the time required to revise the proposal, to plan the meeting once approved, and accommodate your meeting in the schedule of upcoming meetings. We typically organise eight Discussions per year, usually scheduled at least 24 months in advance. While we will try to hold your meeting on your preferred dates, we reserve the right to discuss alternative dates with you.

Following approval of the proposal by the FSCC, the RSC will work with the scientific committee to agree the venue and date of the meeting, agree and invite speakers, and develop the scientific programme. The meeting will subsequently be announced and marketed to the scientific community; key milestone dates will appear on the event webpage, including the oral abstract, poster and registration deadlines.

The scientific committee, led by the chair, works with the RSC to develop the scientific programme, based on the scientific themes and potential speakers from the proposal.

A typical programme contains four inter-connected themes around the topic of the meeting. The themes typically span eight sessions over three days.

Faraday Discussions feature both invited and contributed talks/papers. The invited speakers comprise the Introductory Lecturer, the Closing Remarks Lecturer, and two speakers for each theme. Contributed speakers are selected by the scientific committee from the highest quality submitted abstracts that fit with the themes of the meeting.

If you are not an invited speaker and wish to present a paper at the meeting, you should submit an oral abstract via the event webpage. Oral abstract submission typically opens 9 months before the meeting.

All submitted contributing abstracts will be evaluated by the scientific committee and a fixed number will be selected for presentation at the meeting. Only if your abstract is accepted for presentation will you be required to submit a paper.

All speakers in the oral programme at Faraday Discussions, both invited and contributing, must submit a research paper that contains a significant amount of new, unpublished research 4-5 months before the meeting. This is a precondition of presenting. 

The research papers are reviewed and then provided to delegates as 'pre-prints' about a month before the meeting. This gives delegates the opportunity to read each paper and prepare comments and questions for the discussion in advance. Most of the meeting focuses on discussion of the key issues underlying and connecting the presented papers. At the meeting speakers have five minutes to highlight the most important aspects of their paper, which is then followed by 25 minutes' discussion per paper amongst the delegates.

All the papers presented at a Discussion meeting must mainly contain primary research – a certain amount of prior literature can be included to set the context of the paper and the challenges it is trying to solve. Papers presented at Faraday Discussion meetings do sometimes have more open-ended conclusions, to foster discussion and debate at the meetings. This is all recorded in the fully citable General Discussion sections.

The only exceptions to this are the Spiers Memorial Introductory Lecture, previously the Spiers Memorial Award, which starts the meeting, and the Concluding Remarks, which close it – the associated papers for these presentations are more review-like in nature: the Introductory Lecture sets the scene for the topic of the Discussion meeting and the Concluding Remarks summarises the themes and main discussion points from the preceding days.

All delegates at the meeting, not just speakers, can make comments, ask questions, or present complementary or contradictory measurements and calculations during the discussion. These contributions are known as 'discussion remarks’. These remarks are published alongside the papers in the final volume and are fully citable. Rather than a verbatim account, the published record contains what the contributors said, or think they said or wished they had said.

If it is relevant to the topic, you may give a 5-minute presentation of your own work during the discussion. If you would like to present slides during the discussion, please let the session chair know.

We encourage delegates to display posters at the meeting. Posters can be submitted via the event webpage. The closing date for poster abstracts is around 10 weeks before the meeting date.

The scientific committee selects the posters based on the poster abstracts. Accepted poster presenters are sent full instructions on how to present their poster in-person and also upload them to our online poster platform. At the meeting there is usually the opportunity for selected poster presenters to give 60-second lightning talks at the invitation of the committee. Posters are judged and a prize awarded to the best poster.

You can attend a meeting in person and network face-to-face or use our online platform to network with delegates online by opening a networking room. You can open a public room to discuss your poster for example or open a private room to discuss a career opportunity. Full instructions on how to use the online platform to network are given in the joining instructions for each meeting.

Speakers attending in-person will present from the front of the room in the usual way.

Speakers joining virtually will join the session they are speaking in via a Zoom link. They will be able to screenshare PPT, text, video, image and audio files while presenting via webcam, and also make these files available to other delegates via the online platform.  Speakers joining virtually will be able to join all other sessions through the online platform.

If you are presenting virtually:

If you plan to attend the meeting as a virtual delegate you will need to prepare an e-poster. Your e-poster should be prepared to size 140cm wide by 70cm high, landscape orientation using a suitable programme such as Powerpoint (ppt).

If you are presenting in person:

If you plan to attend the meeting in person, we will ask you to prepare a physical poster for presentation at the meeting and you can also upload an e-poster to our online platform if you wish (please let us know in advance if you would like a virtual poster so that we can arrange for you to receive an email from our poster platform with a link to upload your poster.). Your physical poster should be printed no larger than A0 size, portrait orientation. Please see above for e-poster sizes and note different dimensions.

For all poster presenters:

The organising committee may select some poster presenters to show their videos in the lightning poster session. If you are chosen to do this you will receive a separate email from the events team.

It is possible to participate as an online sponsor or exhibitor. Please contact our sales team at [email protected] to discuss the opportunities available.

At the meeting it is assumed that the papers have already been read, so the presenting authors have only five minutes to summarise the main points. The chair of each session will then open the discussion. Participants are free to question the authors, to present results that confirm or raise doubts about the work presented, and to make links with other relevant work. Authors can respond to the comments. Each person that asks a question or makes a comment (a 'discussion remark') has a maximum of five minutes and, at the end of the discussion session, the author is given the final five minutes if required. Edited discussion remarks will be published in the final Faraday Discussions volume for the meeting. Delegates should submit their comments and questions using the web forum as described at the meeting.

To find out about upcoming events and Faraday Discussions publications, visit our Faraday Discussions main page and/or register for our newsletter.

Yes. Join a meeting in person, with all the benefits of meeting and discussing face to face, or remotely from wherever you are in the world, without leaving your home, office or lab. To learn more about how our hybrid meetings work, see our hybrid meeting FAQs.

With our Research Development Grants you can apply for a grant of up to £500 towards any activity that develops your skills and experience as a researcher, including conference registration fees. These bursaries are available to RSC members who are PhD students or postdoctoral researchers.

You will receive an InEvent joining link by email a few days before the event. Follow this link to access the online platform and resources for the Discussion, including the programme, abstract book, pre-prints and posters. We recommend you familiarise yourself with the platform before the meeting starts.

You will be able to join using a computer / tablet / smartphone with a stable internet connection and integrated speaker, microphone and webcam. For speakers, and anyone sharing a presentation during the event, please use a computer or a laptop to join the event rather than an iPad, tablet or smartphone.

Smartphone users can also participate in the meeting using the dedicated app. Search the App Store or Google Play for InEvent App, or follow the link on the InEvent website to download the app. Login details to access the app and the event will be provided prior to the meeting.

The minimum requirements to use the InEvent platform can be found here.

For the best connectivity during the event:

• Use a wired internet connection if possible.
• If you are using a wireless internet, position yourself close to your router and place your router on a table or chair rather than the floor.
• Ask those that you live with to refrain from downloading or streaming content during the event.
• Switch off Wi-Fi on devices you are not using for the event, such as tablets and smartphones.
• Some electrical devices, including those that work wirelessly, can affect your connection. Ensure that such devices are away from your router. These could include halogen lamps, dimmer switches, stereos and computer speakers, and baby monitors. Electrical devices such as TVs, computer monitors and microwave ovens can also affect your Wi-Fi if they are too close to your router.
• If you are using a VPN, this may affect your connection and could cause difficulty in entering a session or sharing your microphone and camera. We recommend turning your VPN off during the event.
• If you are experiencing any difficulties while taking part in a discussion, try turning off your camera as using just your microphone will use less bandwidth. We recommend adding a profile photo to your account in the event.
• If you are taking part in a Discussion, we recommend using a headset for the best quality sound.

InEvent is compatible with the most common internet browsers but works best in Chrome. Consider installing more than one internet browser on your computer or device so that you have the option of using the browser that gives the best quality.

We recommend you test your audio and video before the meeting. It should be possible to test your microphone and speaker connection via the settings option on your computer or device. To further test your speaker, microphone and bandwidth connection, we recommend using the InEvent Virtual Lobby testing tool.

Note that if you are joining from a work location, your company IT security may block access to the sessions. If you intend to join the event from work, we strongly recommend you use the InEvent Virtual Lobby testing tool to test your connection at work prior to the event starting. If the test does not complete then it is likely your company firewall is blocking access and we recommend you speak to your company IT department. Firewall settings used by InEvent Virtual Lobby can be found here.

If you have any questions or need help before or during the event, please contact us at [email protected]. During the event, RSC members of staff will be able in the Help and Support Room on the InEvent platform and at the venue itself. Please speak to us and we will be happy to help.

The only difference from a typical research paper is that some remarks that may be open to interpretation can be included, stimulating discussion at the meeting.

The deadline for submission is normally 4-5 months before the meeting. Faraday Discussions adhere to a strict timetable so preprints can be generated and circulated to participants before the meeting.

As a guide, Faraday Discussion papers can be 5,000–8,000 words. Papers that are accepted must not be published elsewhere except by permission of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Yes. Faraday Discussion papers are peer reviewed before the meeting. The scientific committee reviews the research papers; revisions may be requested prior to acceptance – in a sense, the 'real' refereeing takes place at the Faraday Discussion meeting, and discussion comments could be considered referee comments.

Yes. Faraday Discussions is a published and citable record of the entire meeting. The papers presented at a Faraday Discussion appear alongside the general discussion remarks (those that the speakers and delegates said). Every delegate can make a major contribution and to be published.

The discussion is not published verbatim. If you ask any questions or make any comments during the Faraday Discussion meeting, you will be able to edit your contribution on the web forum, available after the meeting.

The editor reserves the right to decide whether a contribution is appropriate. The final Faraday Discussions volume is usually published approximately five months after the meeting.

The Just Accepted Manuscript (author supplied, unedited) version of the article will be published online following acceptance, unless you opt-out of this service. More information can be found at the RSC’s Accepted Manuscripts and associated policies webpage.

A proof of the typeset files will be sent to the corresponding author after the meeting takes place. The “Advance Article”, the final scientific version of record, will be published online as soon as proof corrections are received.

The complete volume, including both the articles and the general discussion from the meeting, is published online approximately four months after the event, and in print a further one month after that.

Faraday Discussions allows the deposition of a preprint version (defined as an un-refereed author version) of the article in non-commercial repositories (e.g. ArXiv, ChemRxiv), institutional repositories or authors’ individual websites.

Full details can be found at the RSC’s “Journal policy on prior publication” page.

Content of the online journal can be found at the journal publication website. Subscribers can access all content back to 1906!

If you do not have an institutional subscription, then articles are “pay per view” and a significant number are Open Access – meaning anyone, anywhere can read them. Faraday Discussions are also published individually in book form with their own ISBN. Copies of past volumes can be purchased from the RSC book shop.