Call for Abstracts and Videos

Proposals for the scientific program may be submitted as oral or poster presentations or videos. Submission is only possible online. Abstracts submitted by email, fax or mail will not be considered.

Unless otherwise indicated, the lead author will be assumed to be the presenting author. All correspondence will be sent to this person who is then responsible for forwarding all information to the other Authors.

Abstracts may be submitted from 2 February to 7 April at noon

Submissions after this deadline will not be considered. Authors will be notified by the end of June. Authors are obliged to publish all papers by 31st January 2027 in the DOG journals listed under “Obligation to publish”.

Abstracts will be reviewed in anonymised form by a review panel. Each abstract will be assessed independently by at least three reviewers.

Evaluation will be based solely on the scientific content, structure and quality of the submissions.

The decision regarding and acceptance and the assigned form of presentation will be made by the review panel in collaboration with the DOG Program Committee.

Authors will be informed by email about the decision whether their submission has been accepted or rejected and of the form of presentation. Authors are therefore requested to ensure that  a valid email address is provided and that the Author will access it at the time of the notification.

Free paper oral sessions will be scheduled based on the abstract assessments.

Abstracts will be sorted by code numbers to facilitate assessment. When submitting your abstract, please indicate the relevant subspecialty/subspecialties.

1. Genetics
2. Glaucoma
3. International Ophthalmology
4. Cornea, conjunctiva  
5. Lens, Refractive surgery
6. Pathology/Anatomy
7. Plastic surgery, lids, orbit
8. Retina, RPE, choroid membrane, vitreous body
9. Visual pathway, brain, neuroophthalmology
10. Strabismus, paediatric ophthalmology
11. Trauma
12. Tumours, posterior segment
13. Tumours, anterior segment and others
14. Uvea, iris, pupil, iridocorneal angle
15. Traffic ophthalmology
16. Health services research, health economics and policy
17. Digital Medicine, AI, IT
18. Other topics / miscellaneous
19. Interdisciplinary

Abstracts must follow a structured format (introduction, objectives, aims, methods, results, conclusions). The research question must be clearly defined and the methodology appropriate. Conclusions must be directly supported by the results presented. Vague statements such as “the results are discussed” may lead to rejection.

Abstracts may contain up to 2,500 characters. They may be submitted in German or English and must be ready for publication.

Abstracts must be fully anonymised and must not contain any information that could reveal the identity or origin of the authores. Names of authors, institutions, companies and locations must therefore be removed prior to submission. Abstracts that are not sufficiently anonymised cannot be accepted. Research conducted in close cooperation with industry must be clearly identified as such.

The content of abstracts must not have been previously published in a scientific journal or presented at another congress. Abstract that do no t meet this requirement cannot be submitted.

By submitting the abstract, the author confirms that all the co-authors agree with the submission, that clinical studies were conducted with the approval of the relevant ethics committees, and that any animal experiments received official approval.

Abstracts may be revised or amended at any time prior to the submission deadline.

Poster exhibition, poster dimensions

Posters must be mounted in the poster exhibition area between 7:00 am and 8:00 am on the day of the respective session. Authors are responsible for removing their posters between 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm on the same day. Posters not removed by 6:30 pm will be removed and disposed of by the congress staff. If an author of a “Poster of the Day” is unable to retrieve the poster at the end of the congress, the congress staff will remove the poster and return it by mail to the author. Please inform the congress staff in advance if you are unable to collect your “Poster of the Day”.

Width: 90 cm, height: 120 cm (upright format)

Materials for mounting posters and on-site assistance will be provided. Please include an email address on your poster so that participants may contact you with questions.

In addition, all posters may be uploaded to DOG on Demand

Poster sessions will take place from Thursday to Saturday immediately after the lunch break without parallel events (13:45 to 14:45 hrs.) in the Poster Exhibition, Hall 1. Each session will be held as a moderated small-group format in which the poster authors will present their findings in a 3 minute lecture, followed by a discussion led by two moderators.

Posters may be prepared in German or English.

To ensure that participants can focus on poster presentations without disturbance, headsets and receivers will be provided free of charge from staff at several locations in the poster lobby.

Poster authors are therefore requested to arrive at the poster exhibition in good time before the start of their session. All equipment must be returned immediately after session to the designated staff locations.

After each poster session, the moderators will select one outstanding poster as the “Poster of the Day” for that session. These selected posters will be transferred by the congress staff to a dedicated exhibition “Posters of the Day”. Unlike the remaining posters, “Posters of the Day” will be displayed for the entire duration of the congress.

Each day, a jury will select three exceptional posters from the Posters of the Day. The authors of the selected posters will receive the DOG Poster Award endowed with 500 Euros. The poster awards will be presented as follows:

Friday: Hall 1 during the first break (from 9:45 to 10:15)

Saturday: Award ceremony in Hall 1 (in 2026: from 9:45 to 11:30)

Sunday: Farewell ceremony in Hall 1 (from 13.30)

Posters will be made available for viewing on DOG on Demand.

DOG on Demand archives congress contributions online and offers the opportunity to view missed presentations or revisit content at any time. The program includes all contributions whose authors have agreed to publication. Authors will receive an email from M-Events during the summer containing a link to upload their poster as a PDF. An optional audio track  may be added. DOG on Demand is available free of charge to all congress participants.

The DOG thanks all authors who make their contributions available for publication on DOG on Demand.

The integrity of scientific contributions and discussions within the framework of the DOG Congress is of paramount importance. The DOG therefore places strong emphasis on the disclosure of all potential conflicts of interest by all speakers in order to ensure transparency and integrity in scientific discourse. All financial or other relationships with pharmaceutical, biotechnological, and medical technology companies, consulting firms, or other organizations where a potential conflict of interest may arise must be disclosed.

Obligations and circumstances arising within the 24 months prior to the congress, as well as any foreseeable, or already established future interests, must be declared. All potential conflicts of interest relevant to the content of the congress contribution must be indicated.

The following categories of potential conflicts of interest apply:

1. Consulting or other commissioned services for a fee

2. Employment relationship: Companies where the author is employed

3. Subsidies/Funding: Financial support, research materials or grants for research projects related to the presentation that directly benefit the employed presenter

4. Financial Participation: Financial participation in companies (e.g., shares, stocks, options or other securities with potential benefits)

5. Patents and copyrights: Patents, copyrights or other rights related to the content of the presentation

6. Familial interest to companies employing individuals in senior positions: Companies employing individuals related to the author in the first or second degree in managerial positions

7. Other

This requirement also applies to poster authors, for whom inclusion of a corresponding declaration in the poster is mandatory! Please provide information for each category. If no potential conflict of interest exists, indicate “none” for the respective category.

An example disclosure on a poster may read as follows:
Potential conflicts of interest: 1. none, 2. none, 3. Company ABC, Company GHI, 4. Company ABC, 5. none etc.

Authors are obliged to submit all presentations given in free paper oral and poster sessions at the congress for publication in the DOG’s scientific journals.

All abstracts will additionally be published as an eSupplement to the journal “Die Ophthalmologie” and are therefore citable. The DOG holds the copyright for all accepted scientific contributions.

Manuscripts in German may be submitted until 31 January  2027, at the Author’s discretion either to the journal “Die Ophthalmologie” (https://www.editorialmanager.com/deop/) or to “Klinische Monatsblätter für Augenheilkunde” (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/klimo). Manuscripts in English should be sent online for assessment to the journal “Graefe‘s Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology” at https://www.editorialmanager.com/grae/.

Authors wishing to publish their presentation in another, higher ranked scientific journal may submit an informal request to the Recording Secretary of the DOG. This request must be sent to the DOG Office (veronika.loeer@dog.org) and must include the name of the journal in which the publication is planned.

The obligation to submit a manuscript does not imply acceptance for publication. The final decision rests solely with the respective publisher. The obligation to publish is deemed fulfilled upon submission of the manuscript.

Authors are reminded to follow the “Guidelines for Authors” of the respective journal and to submit their manuscript directly to the publisher(s).

The maximum presentation time for videos is 10 minutes followed by 2 minutes for discussion. These time limits must be strictly adhered to. All presentations, including videos, must be submitted either online or on-site to the Central Media Desk prior to the Congress. The submission deadline is 2 hours before the start of the session in which the presentation will be shown. Presenters scheduled for morning sessions (8:00 – 9:30 a.m. and earlier) must submit their presentations on the evening before. Online submission will be available approximately two weeks prior to the congress. All presenters will receive a separate e-mail from M-Events Cross Media GmbH with access information and further instructions. Video files must be between 100 MB and 1 GB and may be submitted in AVI, MPG, MPG4, MOV and WMV formats. Videos selected by the Video Award Committee (see below) will be marked accordingly.

The presenting author of a poster is required to attend the respective session. In exceptional circumstances, one of the co-authors may act as a substitute. In such cases, the DOG office must be informed in advance. Failure to display a poster or to attend the assigned poster session without prior notification and approval may result in the DOG reserving the right to exclude future submissions by the author from the next DOG congress.

By submitting an abstract, the authors confirm that they hold all necessary rights required for the intended use and publication of the abstract and its content. The submitted abstract must not contain any material whose public dissemination  or presentation would infringe the rights of third parties (e.g. personal rights of identifiable individuals, , copyrights or music subject GEMA fees). The author agrees to indemnify the DOG against any claims asserted by third parties arising from the use or publication of the submitted abstract. By submitting the contribution, the author grants the DOG a non-exclusive, irrevocable right of use without restriction as to content. This right of use includes, in particular, the editing, publication and reproduction of the contribution (see also Obligation to publish).

The Video Award Jury will honour the three best submitted videos with the DOG Video Award, sponsored  by HAAG-STREIT DEUTSCHLAND GmbH. The awards will be presented at the award ceremony on Saturday, 26^th. The winners will be informed in advance by the DOG office.