Presenters | Locate Conference

Preparing your presentation

The template ensures uniformity across presentations during the FIG Working Week and recognizes our sponsors. On the last slide you will have the opportunity to showcase how the presented content contributes to achievement of the SDGs.

What our sessions can do well are articulate interesting ideas, bring new issues forward for discussion and debate, and connect people with each other.

What our sessions cannot do well are present full papers thoroughly, assess results rigorously, nor discuss deep issues in depth.

The goal of presenters is to stimulate audience discussion (and desire to read the papers presented).

Presentations are unsuccessful when the audience is not motivated to read the full paper. The following are some ideas for how authors can get the audience engaged and excited about the paper. Most practices in the DON’T column are standard procedure and the suggestions may seem radical. However, the object should be a presentation that covers less but makes a compelling argument that the paper should be read.

Description:

	DO	DON’T
Purpose of Presentation	Present enough to tell the audience that the paper is worth a read and tell a good story.	Present summaries of all sections of the paper
Format & Timing	Consider starting with the conclusion and then explain why you reached it (e.g. methods/results). Plan for a short presentation – it is easier to expand on points than it is to cut things out. Use fonts larger than 28 pt & no more than 10 slides. Do focus on your results.	Save the punch line as a sort of surprise ending. Plan for 20 minutes in case there is extra time. Use small fonts or too many overheads. Don’t focus on theory or methods (unless that is your contribution).
Introduction	Do focus on what is interesting and new about what you have learned. Do try to start off with a real-world analogy/story.	Don’t focus on why you decided to do the study. Don’t be too conceptual.
Audience Interaction	Look people in the eye and talk to them (not at them). Identify places for audience input. Ask rhetorical questions at key points and wait for responses. For an empirical paper, ask the audience to vote for alternative explanations of the results.	Give a monologue describing your research.
Theory	State the problem, why it is interesting, and what you will add. Explain what is new in this model over past contributions.	Present a literature review of the area (cites, etc.). Explain every arrow in a complex figure.
Methods	Provide an overview of why the measures are linked to the theoretical construct. Establish face validity and assure that more rigorous methods were applied.	Describe the sample measures, and validation of instruments.
Results	Present what was significant. Explain what the data tell you. People will read the paper to get details if the paper seems important.	Present any tables with numbers
Conclusion	Answer broadly what we have learned and what needs to be done now.	Review each result and summarize what was significant.
Final Slide	Identify which SDGs are most relevant to the presented content.	See the identified SDGs per commission and sessions as indicated in the technical programme FIG Working Week 2025.

Further,

A laptop computer and projector will be provided for your presentation, using PowerPoint software.
Your total time slot will be between 5 -15 minutes. The exact time will be confirmed by your session chair.
Arrive at the meeting room before the session begins and contact the session chair for last-minute instructions or possible changes in the schedule.

Please note – Allocation of presentation times throughout the meeting will be determined by the conference organizers and once allocated cannot be altered. We cannot accept individual requests for specific timings due to scheduling complexities

Speakers Preparation Desk

Location: to be updated
Opening hour:
All Speakers are requested to visit the Speakers’ preparation room at least 2 hours prior to the start of your session. There will be technicians waiting to assist you. You are required to have your presentation on an USB Memory Stick or External Portable Hard Drive, and the technician will download your presentation to the central system. You will help the technicians by having the session number of your presentation ready so that we can make sure that your presentation will be sent to the correct session room. Please notice that there are no computers available for elaboration on your presentation.

Please notice that you are required to bring your presentation to the speakers preparation room, you can not bring it directly to the session room. If you do not have any visual aids or requirements you must still check in at the Speakers’ preparation room to inform the technicians that you are present.

It is important that your presentation is named correctly so that it can be showed in the session. Please name your presentation in the following way:
Presentations must be prepared in Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT) or (PPTX) or the presentation converted to Adobe PDF format and saved onto an USB Memory Stick or External Portable Hard Drive. Floppy Disks, 35mm Slides and Over Head Transparencies are not accepted.

No own laptops are allowed. Your presentation must be shown through the computer in the room with your session. Presenters who wish to use their own laptop due to special software requirements are requested to check this at the Speakers’ preparation room. Again, please check in at the Speakers’ preparation room 2 hours prior to your presentation.

Session Chair

In the technical session there will be a chair and a rapporteur. The chair will introduce you to the audience based on the information that you have included in your paper. The chair will be responsible that all speakers in the session will have the same time to make their presentation. He/she will also reserve some time for questions/discussion either after each presentation or at the end of the session. Number of papers per session varies, so please follow the instructions of the chair in your session. There may be some last minute changes (e.g. drop outs) that may impact the time schedule.

Our profession, and therefore FIG, has a key role to tackle the global challenges. For each session the relevant SDGs have been defined. Additionally we ask each presenters to showcase how their work contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. We have included a final slide in the presentation template, where they can select which SDGs are most relevant to the presented content. For more information and inspiration see the identified SDGs per commission and sessions as indicated in the technical programme FIG Working Week 2025.

As chair of a session we provide you with additional suggestions for questions after the presentations.

Rapporteur

The role of the rapporteur is to evaluate the session. The rapporteur will observe the session and fill in a questionnaire, which will be used to evaluate the technical programme.