The overarching theme for HR25 is Sowing Change to Harvest Justice, reflecting our commitment to exploring and promoting strategies that foster social justice, equity, and peace in the context of drug policy. We would love to see this theme reflected in your submissions.
HRI has a particular interest in hearing from you on how harm reduction intersects with other social justice movements, so please think big – there are no limits.
We also encourage submissions around the foundational aspects of harm reduction, such as HIV prevention and treatment, hepatitis elimination, key populations, programming, Opioid Agonist Therapy (OAT), needle and syringe programmes, drug policy and overdose prevention.
For all topics, we encourage centring people who use drugs, an intersectional approach, and community-led responses. There are no specific ‘women’ or ‘young people’ topics because we expect to see women and young people reflected in all topics. You can tackle any topic from the point of view of research, service provision, organising and activism, etc.
You can read about the different types of session that we will offer at HR25 here.
The list of topics should be seen as a starting point and not as a limit; it reflects the global rotation of the Harm Reduction International Conference, highlighting some of the priority issues for Latin America as we return to the region for the first time in over 25 years.
Abstracts can be submitted in English or Spanish. Due to the nature of the peer review process for HR25, all abstracts submitted in Spanish will be translated to English.
When you're ready, submit your abstract through the online portal here.
The deadline for submitting your abstract is 30 September 2024.
Support with submitting an abstract
Need help with how to navigate our system? We will have abstract guide videos available in English and Spanish by 13th September.
For support with how to write the abstract content, click here to contact us so we can introduce you to one of our abstract mentors.
Without an outstanding programme there would be no conference.
The programme of the Harm Reduction International Conference is mostly abstract-driven. This means that we ask you, our delegates, to submit your best work to be considered for inclusion in our programme. We will put out a call for abstracts in August that will detail the kind of topics that we're looking to focus on and then you have until the end of September to submit your abstract. In October and November, our committees (more on those below) work hard to select abstracts and to build sessions for inclusion in the final programme.
Speakers in our Opening, Closing and three Plenary sessions are all invited. We canvas a large group of partners and allies to set thematic priorities and then seek out exemplary speakers on those themes.
The Online Review Committee (ORC) undertakes the considerable task of reviewing over 1000 abstract submissions. As 80% of the programme is driven by abstracts, the HR25 ORC needs to reflect a wide range of experiences with regard to drug use, sex work, age, race/ethnicity, professional background and geographic location, so that our team of reviewers read the submissions through a variety of perspectives.
When the call for abstracts closes in September 2024, the ORC reviewers will evaluate the abstracts using a simple online scoring system, with each reviewer asked to review approximately 30 abstracts; each abstract is reviewed at least three times.
A call for abstracts is at the very core of each HRI conference and always marks a true start in its planning; the contribution of the ORC helps to ensure the quality of content to be presented at the conference.
To apply to join the HR25 Online Review Committee, click here.
When the ORC process ends, the Programme Committee (PC) will meet over three days in November 2024 to review the abstracts again, taking into account the reviews of the ORC, and to build the final programme. Our Programme Committee meeting is mostly online to allow for greater geographic diversity in its makeup. A smaller group of team leaders meets in Liverpool, UK to oversee the process. We owe a huges debt of gratitude to the PC members, some of whom have to work very odd hours for the duration of the meeting.
Each year, the Programme Committee members are astounded by the high quality of the submissions, and selecting abstracts is extremely difficult.
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