Presenters in the expert-guided poster tours at the 2026 congress of the European Association of Urology (EAU) received an instruction that would have puzzled a congress team fifteen years ago: printing is not required. Their posters went onto digital screens as 16:9 PDFs, and each presenter had two minutes on stage plus three minutes of discussion with two experts. Paper has not disappeared, though. In a 2018 analysis of 98 European and international medical meetings reported by AMI magazine, 74 per cent of posters still appeared in print, many of them alongside an electronic version.
For organisers, the choice depends on how each format helps authors discuss their work with delegates. Screens replace the boards, not the conversation. An e-poster session works when you plan it as a chaired programme slot with a timetable, and fails when it becomes a row of screens in a corridor. This guide shows you how to choose the format, write the author guidelines, size the stations, judge a poster prize and keep the conversation going after the slot.
What is a poster session, and what is an e-poster?
The terms describe the same idea in different media. In a poster session, authors present research or project results in a visual format while attendees move between them. Each presenter has a fixed time at the work, explains the results and answers questions. Where that session sits next to plenaries, parallel tracks and workshops in your programme grid is covered in our guide to conference session types. This article goes one level deeper, into the logistics of the poster slot itself.
An e-poster is the digital version: a PDF or a single slide shown on a screen instead of an A0 sheet on a board. Congresses use it in three ways:
| Format | How it works | Strength | Weak spot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Printed poster session | A0 posters on boards, authors at their poster in fixed presence times | Visible all day, many conversations at once | Needs a lot of floor space and a print run per author |
| E-poster library | All posters searchable on touch screens or terminals, no fixed presentation | Every poster available all congress and often afterwards | Nobody stands next to the work, so few conversations |
| Presented e-poster | Short talk at a screen station with a chair and a few minutes of questions | Guaranteed audience for every author, easy to judge | Strict timing, needs chairs, sound and technicians |
Many large meetings combine the formats. The European Society of Endocrinology moved to e-posters in 2015 and later ran a hybrid model, with every poster electronic and some also shown in print (AMI magazine, 2019). The European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology tried a hybrid in 2015 and went back to e-posters only a year later.
Print and screens mostly run side by side
The two shares add up to more than 100 per cent because many posters appear in both media. For you, that means hybrid is not an exotic compromise. It is what most large meetings already run.
Printed, digital or hybrid: how to decide
Consider a medical society with 300 accepted posters. Alongside cost and floor space, the organising team needs to ensure that every author has an opportunity to present and discuss their work. Use that as a central criterion when comparing formats.
Here is what the evidence says about each side:
- Paper keeps people at the work: “You cannot talk to a computer,” as the European Cystic Fibrosis Society put it when explaining why it values printed poster sessions for networking (AMI magazine, 2019).
- Paper costs floor space: the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) calculated 12 to 16 square metres per printed poster at its conferences, aisles and audience included. For 100 posters, that is 1,200 to 1,600 square metres before any catering.
- Screens make every poster findable: an e-poster library lets attendees search by topic, and many congresses keep the files online after the event.
- Screens need a timetable: without a presented slot, an e-poster is a file nobody visits. The time slot creates the audience.
A practical rule follows from this. If your venue has the space and your posters are the main way young researchers meet senior colleagues, keep printed boards with protected presence times. If you have several hundred posters, little floor space or a strong online audience, move to presented e-posters with a library behind them. The hybrid route is the safest for a first year: all posters digital, prize candidates also presented live.
Write the e-poster guidelines before acceptance letters go out
Whatever you choose, most problems start weeks before the congress, in the instructions to authors. Three major European congresses in 2026 show how precise those instructions need to be, and how differently they decide the same details:
| Rule | EAN Congress 2026 | EHRA 2026 | EAU26 poster tour |
|---|---|---|---|
| File | Single page PDF, 16:9 landscape | One page built in PowerPoint, saved as PDF, 16:9 landscape | PDF, 16:9 landscape, at least 200 dpi |
| Talk and questions | 3 minutes plus 2 minutes of live Q&A | Commentary of 3 minutes maximum | 2 minutes plus 3 minutes of discussion |
| Extras | Narration required, QR codes allowed | At least 3 zoom zones, QR codes not allowed | No videos, no printing needed |
| Deadline | Upload at the latest 4 hours before the slot | 12 March, missing it means withdrawal | 10 February 2026, 23:59 CET |
Sources: presenter guidelines of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN), the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA, part of the European Society of Cardiology) and the EAU, all for their 2026 congresses.
None of these rules is right or wrong. What matters is that you decide them once and write them into one document that goes out with the acceptance letter. A 16:9 landscape PDF is the safest default, because it fits standard screens without black bars. Decide early whether QR codes are allowed, because authors will add them anyway if you say nothing. And set the upload deadline early enough for your technicians to open every file on the actual screens.
From accepted abstract to e-poster on screen
- Programme Choose the format Library, presented e-poster or hybrid, plus file format, orientation and slot length.
- Acceptance Send the guidelines One document with the template rules, QR policy, upload link and deadline.
- Upload Collect the files A personal upload link per author, no email submissions, a reminder before the deadline.
- Technical check Test every file Open each PDF on the real screens, check font sizes and zoom areas.
- Congress day Run the chaired slot Fixed order per station, a chair who keeps time, working microphones.
- After the event Publish the library Keep the posters online with a way to contact each author.
How many screens and chairs does a presented e-poster session need?
Once the files are in, the timetable decides how much hardware you rent. The maths is simple, because every presented e-poster has a fixed length. At the EAN pace of five minutes per poster, one station handles 12 posters an hour, or 18 in a 90 minute slot, the length of an EAU poster tour. From there, the number of stations follows from the number of posters you want to present in one slot:
| E-posters to present in one 90 minute slot | Stations at 5 minutes per poster | Chairs needed (one per station) |
|---|---|---|
| 60 | 4 | 4 |
| 120 | 7 | 7 |
| 240 | 14 | 14 |
The table is our own calculation based on the EAN timing, not an industry standard. It shows the order of magnitude, and it shows the hidden cost. Every station needs a chair who keeps time, and the EAU even uses two experts per tour. Recruit those chairs from your scientific committee early, because they are also your natural poster jury.
Sound is the part that most often goes wrong. In a survey after the 2016 EAN congress, about 60 per cent of respondents appreciated the poster equipment, but sound was rated poorly and flagged for improvement (Ozturk and Kuks, 2017). Five stations talking at once in an open foyer produce noise, not conversation. Give each station a microphone or headsets, and place stations far enough apart that one talk does not drown the next.
Location matters as much as hardware. Put the stations where people already walk: between the catering and the session halls, not in a basement corridor. Schedule the presented slot in a coffee or lunch break, with nothing else in the programme competing for the audience.
Judging and poster prizes
The presented slot has a second benefit: it makes judging easy. When every author speaks for the same number of minutes in front of a chair, the jury sees each poster under the same conditions. At the European Society of Cardiology’s Digital and AI Summit in November 2025, the closing session included the results of the moderated e-poster awards. Presentation and prize belong together.
For a fair prize, a short scoring sheet is enough:
- Scientific quality: the question, the method and the relevance of the results.
- Clarity of the poster: can a visitor grasp the message in one minute?
- Presentation and discussion: how well the author explains the work in three minutes and answers questions.
Ask at least two jury members to score each candidate and settle large differences together. Shortlist before the congress from the uploaded PDFs, so the jury visits only the finalists on site. Then hand out the prize in a full plenary, not at the end of a half empty closing session.
A prize is not the only thing at stake for authors. In the United States, the American Medical Association (AMA) directly awards 5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits for each poster where a physician is first author, provided the poster appears in the published abstracts of a conference certified for those credits. That gives your poster programme a weight that goes beyond the prize. How sessions and credits are tracked across a congress we explain in our guide to CPD and CME accreditation for conferences.
From the screen to a conversation
Even a well chaired slot ends after five minutes, and that is where most poster programmes lose their value. Research on printed posters found that fewer than 5 per cent of delegates visited posters at the medical meetings studied (Goodhand et al., Clinical Medicine, 2011). In the 2016 EAN survey, only half of the respondents rated the opportunity for interaction positively, and just 55 per cent of presenters felt they had networked successfully (Ozturk and Kuks, 2017). An online system for contacting authors after the congress was barely used.
That brings back the question of how young researchers experience the format. Presented work is not enough. They want feedback, a contact and perhaps a collaboration. Plan for the minutes after the slot:
- Put a clear way to reach each author next to the poster, on screen or in the app.
- Ask chairs to point out that follow-up conversations are welcome.
- Reserve a window for arranged conversations after the poster slot, before the evening programme starts.
With Converve, poster authors take part as regular attendees with their own profile, so anyone who saw a poster can send them a meeting request straight after the session. You decide who may request meetings with whom, and accepted meetings go into free slots in both agendas. Our B2B matchmaking works with this rule-based meeting matrix, and the poster slots themselves sit in the programme module of the same platform.
Which abstracts end up as posters rather than talks is decided earlier, by your reviewers. How a committee scores abstracts and recommends a format for each one is covered in our guide to the conference programme committee. If you want a second short format in the same programme, a block of lightning talks before a break follows the same logic: short presentations that open conversations afterwards.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an e-poster?
An e-poster is a digital version of a scientific poster, usually a single page PDF or slide shown on a screen at a congress instead of a printed A0 poster on a board. It can be browsed in an e-poster library or presented by the author in a short, chaired slot.
What is an e-poster session?
In an e-poster session, authors present their poster at a screen station in a short, timed slot, followed by questions from a chair and the audience. At the EAN Congress 2026, each slot lasted five minutes: three for the presentation and two for live questions.
What size and format should an e-poster be?
Most congresses ask for a single page in 16:9 landscape format, delivered as a PDF. The EAN, EHRA and EAU all used 16:9 landscape for their 2026 congresses. Check whether QR codes, videos or narration are allowed, because the rules differ from congress to congress.
How many e-poster stations do I need?
Divide the number of posters by the number each station can handle in one slot. At five minutes per poster, one station presents 18 posters in 90 minutes, so 120 posters need about seven stations, each with its own chair (own calculation based on the EAN timing).
Are e-posters better than printed posters?
Neither is better in general. E-posters save floor space and make every poster searchable, while printed posters keep authors at their work for longer conversations. A 2018 analysis of 98 medical meetings found print still used for 74 per cent of posters, often alongside an electronic version (AMI magazine, 2019).
How much space does a printed poster session need?
The Association for Computational Linguistics calculated 12 to 16 square metres per printed poster, including aisles and audience. For 100 posters, that means 1,200 to 1,600 square metres.
Conclusion: plan the conversation, not just the screens
E-posters solve real problems: floor space, printing and posters nobody can find. They do not solve the poster’s oldest problem, which is the empty space in front of the work. A presented slot with a chair, working sound and a jury gives every author an audience. A follow-up window turns that audience into contacts.
For early-career researchers in particular, the value lies in having people listen, ask questions and stay in touch afterwards. Plan the session around that exchange, whichever display format you choose.
Want to turn conversations at the poster screens into booked meetings? Talk to Converve.
