EUMASS 2026 – Abstract Submission Guidelines

Table of Contents

1. General guidelines
2. Conference topics
3. Type of presentation
4. Type of abstracts
5. Guidelines for authors
6. Abstracts acceptance
7. Instructions for Workshops & Minisymposium

1. General Guidelines

All abstracts should be submitted electronically, through the abstract submission system.

• The deadline for the submission is 10 January 2026, 18:00 CET.
• By submitting the abstract, you agree that if the abstract is accepted:
  • It will be published on the congress website www.eumass2026.eu
  • It will be published on the EUMASS website www.eumass.eu as part of the abstract book with your agreement
  • You will attend the EUMASS congress.
    To confirm your attendance, you have to register for the congress by 30 May 2026.
    You can submit an abstract before registering to the congress, but if you are not registered by the date your abstract will be removed from the conference and EUMASS website.
• Abstracts will be published on the website as submitted. Ensure careful proof-reading of your submission.
• You can access the online submission form which must be used to submit the abstracts for your specific learning format. Complete this form and click ‘SEND’ to submit it for review.
• You will be asked to indicate to which topics of the congress, type of presentation and type of abstracts your abstract is referred to (sections 2, 3 and 4).
• You must repeat the submission process for each abstract you want to submit (short oral presentations, posters, etc.).
• Each abstract is assigned a unique identifier. You will receive this in your mail along with the summary of submitted fields, as well as a link to make any corrections or additions to your abstract. You can use this link until the deadline for submitting abstracts.

2. Conference Topics

All parallel sessions should link to one of the conference topics.

2.1. The Sick Leave Revolution: Smarter Solutions for Health and Productivity

• Rethinking certification, presenteeism, and European innovations in absence management
• Sick leave (certification, guidelines, Sick Leave reduction, epidemiologic studies)
• Work capacity evaluation, ICF, Evidence-based medicine, noise and bias in insurance judgment

2.2. From Rehab to Resilience: Empowering Return-to-Work Success

• Redefining the journey with patient-first approaches, employer roles, and prevention strategies
• Rehabilitation and return-to-work (methods, patient’s perspective, employer’s role, prevention)
• Claimants (bullying, harassment, health promotion)

2.3. Insurance Medicine 2.0: Ethics, Technology, and Changing Roles

• Exploring person-centered care, data-driven tools, and the evolving role of technology
• Changing profile of the insurance medicine provider (task sharing, team roles)
• Multidisciplinary approach in work capacity evaluation (team dynamics in Europe)
• Ethics in insurance medicine (patient perspective, empowerment, right to be forgotten)
• Information technology and artificial intelligence in insurance medicine (e-health, big data, automation, data exchange)

2.4. Widening the Scope: Insurance Medicine in Interaction

• Monitoring healthcare and healthcare providers (trends in healthcare and healthcare payment models, comparisons of healthcare providers, auditing of healthcare services billing, identifying waste in healthcare services) & sharing the knowledge (feedback to healthcare providers, workshops, guidelines)
• Strengthening teams, transforming education, and connecting insurance medicine with healthcare
• Training in insurance medicine (curricula, objectives, skills, evaluation)

2.5. Thriving in Transition: Tackling Demographics and Workplace Challenges

• Addressing aging populations, workplace dynamics, and the hidden costs of insurance practices
• Demographic and social changes (aging population, disability, migration, climate)
• Drawbacks in insurance medicine (for claimants, health funds, and medical advisors)
• Impact of changing legislation

3. Type of Presentation for Parallel Sessions

3.1. Short Orals

90-minute session with 15 minutes per speaker including discussion for 5 speakers.
Short Orals are a series of oral presentations all individually submitted as abstracts and grouped by theme by the Scientific Committee. Dialogue with the audience aims to challenge thinking, explore new ideas, and address specific questions.

3.2. Posters, including Poster Sessions

Posters are a great opportunity to communicate smaller formats of ongoing or completed work:

• Share experience from research and practice
• Introduce theoretical considerations or new models
• Present research findings
• Explore new ideas
• Address specific questions or issues related to research and practice of insurance medicine (see section 2)

3.3. Minisymposium (90 min)

A symposium enables a discussion on one topic from a variety of perspectives.
A symposium is organized by a group and contains three to four presentations around a common focus. Each talk should reflect different approaches or theoretical ideas that invite the audience to explore further. A facilitated 30-minute discussion should follow.
Abstract submission follows the instructions for authors (see Submission Guidelines section 5).

3.4. Workshops (90 min)

Workshops aim to bring together participants for hands-on, practical learning and collaboration on a range of engaging themes along the key topics of EUMASS 2026.
We invite workshop proposals that are interactive, topical and will keep participants talking. Innovative workshop formats are welcome.

4. Type of Abstracts

Abstract submission: follows the instructions for authors (see Submission guidelines section).

The types of abstracts accepted are the following:

• 4.1. Research abstracts
• 4.2. Policy abstracts
• 4.3. Practice abstracts
• 4.4. Training and educations abstracts

The abstracts should follow this structure:

• Research abstracts:
  Background, Objectives, Methods, Results, Conclusion
  The research abstracts without results will not be accepted.
• Abstracts in relation to policy, practice, training and education:
  Issue/problem, Description of the problem, Results (effects / change), Lessons

5. Guidelines for Authors

5.1 Technical Requirements

• Only abstracts submitted in English will be considered. The abstracts for any communication in French need to be submitted in English, too.
• Abstracts for short orals and posters must not be more than 400 words.
• The abstract title should not be more than 20 words.
• Graphics or tables are not accepted.
• Abstract title should be in lowercase, except the first letter, abbreviations, and countries. Do not use capital letters only. Use Arial 11, and Arial 14 for the title. Bold can be used for titles and subtitles.
• If abbreviations are used, the abbreviated term should be written out in full the first time it is used.
• Author and co-author: you can include up to 10 authors. The presenting author must be clearly identified whatever the format. In case the presenting author is unable to attend the UEMASS congress, a substitute presenter may take the presenting author’s place. He must be listed as co-author on the abstract and must be registered for the congress.

5.2. Design Headings

To increase your chance of being understood and, consequently, have your presentation accepted by the scientific committee, here are a few reference points:

• What is the question you intend to answer?
• Does the abstract follow the guidelines?
• Is the topic appropriate for the conference?
• Is my information new or innovative?
• Is the methodology adequate to support the conclusion?
• Are the results adequately summarized?
• Do data sufficiently offer support to conclusion?
• Does the information have relevance for your community and the rest of Europe?

6. Abstract Acceptance

• Submissions will be evaluated on their originality, clarity, scientific quality, writing style and their level of relevance to the key topics of EUMASS 2026 (see section 2).
• At the time of submission, you will be asked to indicate a preference for oral or poster presentation. However, the final decision on the type of presentation offered is made by the Scientific Committee.
• You will be asked to link your abstract with one of the topics 1 to 5 (see section 2) and type of abstracts (see section 3).
• We aim to notify authors of acceptance or rejection of their submission by 31 March 2026.
• Accepted abstracts will be published on the conference website, providing the registration to the congress of the presenter.
• After the congress your abstract will be published on the EUMASS website www.eumass.eu in an abstract book with your agreement.

7. Instructions for Workshops & Minisymposium

7.1. Workshops

Abstract submission follows the instructions for authors (see Submission guidelines section 5).

• Your workshop should have explicit objectives, including a high level of interaction with the audience, and follow a structured outline matching the length of your session.
• Be practical: Include hands-on work and examples of good practice or pitfalls to avoid – and maybe add some fun or a new interactive format to keep an entertaining momentum.
• Avoid lectures! If in a 90-minute workshop you have more than 10 slides before starting an interactive component, you have too many!
• Proposals that primarily present the results of a research project should NOT be submitted as workshops (but consider submitting it as oral or poster presentations).

Background:

Address the scientific background and practical rationale for the workshop as well as significance of the topic to insurance medicine. Do not assume that everyone will be familiar with the topic of the workshop. Explain why the topic of your study is important and what challenges you aim to address.

Objectives:

This workshop aims to:

• Provide the participant with an overview of the scientific status of performance-based measures.
• Discuss opportunities and challenges to integrating and using results of performance-based measures in Insurance Medicine.

Outline of the workshop:

Please describe in a few sentences what you will do to make the workshop as interactive as possible.

Example sentences:

• We will discuss examples from [...].
• In small groups we will elaborate [...].
• Ultimately, the workshops aim to improve [...].

Duration and detailed structure of the workshop:

Duration: 90 Minutes

Structure:

• 5 min: Introduction, Agenda of the Workshop (Name Moderator).
• 15 min: Interactive plenary part (Name Moderator).
• 30 min: Small groups rotation exercise (“World café”), (Name of Moderator).
• 30 min: Plenary discussion, conclusions and next steps. (Name of Moderator).

The abstracts of all presentations should be submitted together via the field of oral presentations. A single abstract per workshop which includes the 3–4 paragraphs (each one for one presentation) is expected.

7.2. Minisymposium

Your abstract should give an overview of the topic, the aim of the Minisymposium, and a short summary of each presentation.

A single abstract per minisymposium which includes one paragraph for each presentation is expected.

Background

Address the scientific background and practical rationale for the Minisymposium as well as significance of the topic to insurance medicine. Do not assume that everyone will be familiar with the topic of the Minisymposium. Explain why your Minisymposium is important and what challenges you aim to address.

Organizing group(s):

Add the name of the group(s) which is leading this Minisymposium e.g. Cochrane Work, review group.

Objectives:

This Minisymposium aims to describe the common focus of the Minisymposium in relation to the conference topics (see section 2).

Example sentences:

You will understand [...]. You will learn [...]. You will discuss with… [...].

Detailed duration and structure of the minisymposium:

Duration: 90 Minutes

Structure:

Present a detailed timeline and structure of the Minisymposium workshop which will lead to achieving the objectives.

Example:

• 10 min: Introduction, Agenda of the Workshop (Name Moderator).
• 5 min: Topic Short Input-Presentation 1 (Name Author 1)
• 5 min: Topic Input-Presentation 2 (Name Author 2)
• 5 min: Topic Short Input-Presentation 3 (Name Author 3)
• 5 min: Topic Short Input-Presentation 4 (Name Author 4)
• 30 min: Plenary discussion (Name of Moderator)
• 30 min: Conclusions and next steps (Name of Moderator)

The abstracts of all presentations should be submitted together via the field of oral presentations. A single abstract per minisymposium which includes the 3–4 paragraphs (each one for one presentation) is expected.