2026 Herston Health Precinct Symposium Abstracts

The 2026 Herston Health Precinct Symposium Steering Committee is calling for oral and poster presentations to feature at the Symposium held 31 August to 2 September. Abstract submissions are open to staff, consumers, students and other persons undertaking research at, or in collaboration with, the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital (RBWH), the Surgical Treatment and Rehabilitation Service (STARS) and the many medical research institutes, universities and organisations that form the Herston Health Precinct.

The Symposium will be held in the Main Auditorium of the Education Centre, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (Monday/Tuesday), and the Bancroft Auditorium, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute (Wednesday) with audience attendance in person or online via Microsoft Teams.

Oral presentations: the Symposium will feature a limited number of oral presentations (approximately 40-45) selected from abstract submissions. Oral presentations will be strictly 7 minutes in total followed by 2-3 minutes of question time or 4 minutes with 1 minute for questions (time permitting). If your abstract is not selected for an oral presentation, you will have the opportunity to submit a poster presentation.

Poster presentations: we encourage as many posters as possible to feature at the Symposium. If you are accepted for a poster presentation, you will be provided detailed submission instructions and a template for submission of an ePoster, which will be printed for display during the 2026 Herston Health Precinct Symposium (at no charge to presenters).  Posters and ePosters will also be displayed throughout the Herston Campus over the following 12 months and on the Symposium website. If accepted for a poster presentation, you will be invited to attend and stand by your poster for an informal poster presentation during a specified session. 

Applicants for oral and poster presentations will be asked to provide the following:

• Presenter name/s and contact details (maximum of 2)
• Co-investigators
• Herston partner affiliations of presenters and co-investigators
• Title of the study or presentation
• An overview of the study or presentation

All oral and poster presentation requests will be reviewed prior to acceptance and successful applicants will be notified late June 2026.

Awards: Oral and poster presentations will be eligible for one or more awards on offer at the Symposium, including awards in the following categories: 

• Allied Health Research Award
• Best Poster Research Award
• Clinical Research Award
• Consumer Partnership in Research Award
• Discovery and Innovation Research Award
• Early Career Researcher Award
• Higher Degree Researcher Award
• Nursing and Midwifery Research Award
• Translational Research into Practice Award

The Early Career Research Award will be open to individuals within 5 years of completing their research higher degree (MPhil, PhD or equivalent) or within 5 years of commencing active research (as indicated by grants and publications), including undergraduate and research higher-degree students.

The Awards ceremony will be conducted at the Herston Health Precinct Symposium at the closing event, 1pm -2pm on Wednesday, 2nd September. 

As defined by Health Consumers Queensland, consumers are people who use, or are potential users, of health organisations including their family and carers. Consumers may participate in projects as individuals, groups, organisations of consumers, consumer representatives or communities. For the purposes of the following questions, a consumer is not a staff member, however, may be a Metro North consumer representative and must meet the previous definition. The following levels of consumer participation are based on the National Framework for Consumer Involvement in Cancer Control, Cancer Australia (2011).

The abstract is limited to no more than 300 words in total. Do not include graphs, pictures, tables or references. Please include the following:

• Sentence stating the purpose of the study
• Brief description of the methods
• Statement of results
• Statement of conclusions

Note: for abstract submissions that do not fit the above format, a brief description of the proposed presentation is required with details of the intent and proposed content.