The 68th ORCA Congress will be held in Zagreb, Croatia, from July 7 to 10, 2021. Further information about the Congress and the venue will be available at https://orca-caries-research.org/events/68th-orca-congress. Registration will be made through this website.

Abstracts must be submitted via the ORCA abstract submission system available at the ORCA and congress page. Abstracts cannot be submitted directly to the Editor.

If participants require a letter of invitation (e.g., to obtain visa or to satisfy their institution’s requirements), the ORCA Board will provide one on request. Please contact the Secretary-General, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Monique van der Veen (e-mail secretary@orca-caries-research.org) in good time. The provision of such a letter does not imply that travel expenses will be covered by ORCA.

The abstracts for presentation at the 68th ORCA Congress will be published prior to the meeting, in an online issue of Caries Research. This issue will be the only abstract book for the Congress, and will be available online, free of charge. The deadline for submitting an abstract is January 10, 2021.

All abstracts will be reviewed by the Scientific Program Committee. Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection of their abstract by February 28, 2021, and at that time may be asked for revisions. Any such revisions must be submitted by March 7, 2021. Abstracts cannot be withdrawn after that. If an abstract is not withdrawn by that date, and the paper is not presented, the named presenter will not be allowed to present any paper at the following ORCA Congress.

Presenters should note the following:

  • The Congress focuses on research into dental caries and related topics

  • Abstracts must describe research that has not been published or presented already and has not been submitted to another meeting at the time of submission for the ORCA Congress

  • Authors may present only one paper at the Congress but may co-author other papers

  • The presentation at the Congress must conform to the material in the published abstract. Once submitted, abstracts can be edited within the submission system until January 10, 2021, and during the period for revisions from February 28 to March 7, 2021. Afterwards, corrections are limited to numerical errors or typos and should be done during reading the proof prior to publishing

  • Those who submit an abstract are committed to present the paper in person at the Congress. All presentations are conducted as poster sessions and include the presence at the poster at a set time as well as a short oral presentation and discussion in the audience. However, due to the uncertainties caused by the Corona pandemic, the course of the Congress may change. This will be announced in time on the Congress homepage

  • Posters and slides for the oral presentation must be uploaded in the submission system not later than June 4, 2020. Two slides are possible, but animations are not allowed. For further details, please see the Congress webpage

Presenters should:

  • Ensure that they will have the necessary funds to attend the Congress

  • Apply for any necessary visas in good time, to ensure that they can travel to the Congress to present their paper

  • Ensure that any abstract describing commercially funded research has been approved by the funding company before submitting it

  • Write their abstract exactly according to the instructions given below; they are urged to seek help from the master abstract provided within the submission system

Presenters will be asked for the following items:

  • Surnames and initials of the presenting author, corresponding author and other authors

  • The e-mail address of authors

  • Brief affiliations of authors (institute, city, country only)

  • The title of abstract should be 15 words or less

  • The text of abstract should be 280 words or less and should state: the aim of the work; the experimental approach; the main results; the conclusions. The results must include key numerical and statistical data but do not attempt to report data exhaustively; SI units should be used. The conclusions should be explicit. Vague expressions such as “the results will be discussed” could result in rejection of the abstract. Include references only when they are essential and follow an abbreviated Caries Research format, but omitting the authors’ initials and the title, and using “et al.” for multiple-author works. Example: [Main et al.: J Oral Rehab 1983;10:307–313]. Tables, photographs, graphs or diagrams are not allowed. Acknowledge sources of funding

  • One of the following key phrases, which are required to assist programming: Clinical studies; De- and Re-mineralisation; Epidemiology; Erosion; Fluoride; Hard Tissues; Microbiology; Pulp-Dentinal Reactions; Diagnosis. Those submitting an abstract for the Education Platform should use the key phrase Education.

The ORCA Nathan Cochrane Junior Scientist’s Award, inaugurated in 2007 as the Young Investigator’s Award, is intended to encourage young researchers. The prize winner receives a certificate and is entitled to receive reimbursement of the congress fees of a future ORCA Congress. Applicants for the ORCA Nathan Cochrane Junior Scientist’s Award must present a poster at an ORCA Congress and have to fulfil the following criteria:

  • have not more than 5 international publications identified in Medline on the day of the deadline for abstract submission for the next ORCA Congress;

  • be aged 35 years or under on the last day of the ORCA Congress;

  • be present at the closing ceremony of the ORCA Congress;

  • not be a previous winner of the ORCA Young Investigator’s Award or Junior Scientist’s Award;

  • must be the first author of the presentation;

  • presentation must not be a review.

Presenters enter the competition by ticking the appropriate box when submitting their abstract via the online submission system.

The deadline for nominations is January 10, 2021.

Nominations are invited for the ORCA Prize 2021. This prestigious prize is given in recognition of outstanding contributions to the field of dental caries research. Only ORCA members can make nominations for the prize, but nominees need not be ORCA members. Moreover, there are no restrictions on nominees with respect to age or seniority, and persons who have previously been nominated unsuccessfully can be renominated. The main qualification is a body of original published work in caries research, but this may be supported by a record of active promotion of caries research in other ways. The chairman of the 2021 Prize Committee will be Prof. David Beighton. Each nomination should be supplemented by a “brief statement of the reasons for nomination” (i.e., a suggested citation), a curriculum vitae including a listing of “the body of original published work,” the field(s) in which the nominee predominantly works or worked, and the location where he/she did so.

Please send your nomination to the chairman of the Prize Committee: Prof. David Beighton; e-mail 88beighton@gmail.com.

The Committee is composed of the Vice President, the Past President and a member of the Advisory Council of the Board; it is chaired by the Vice President. The Committee aims to stimulate and facilitate research related to the aims of ORCA by a variety of methods:

  • through periodic summer schools and Saturday afternoon symposia held in association with the ORCA congresses;

  • by helping organize summer schools or symposia in countries where cariology is developing or where ORCA is not yet present;

  • by funding and advising young researchers from countries where cariology is developing or where ORCA is not yet present.

Announcements relating to these activities will be made each year in Issue 5 of Caries Research as well as on the ORCA website. Proposals for summer schools should be addressed to the Vice President (Prof. Marie-Charlotte Huysmans).

These fellowships will be available in 2021, to assist attendance at an ORCA Congress. Researchers in the field of caries or related subjects will be eligible, and preference will be given to workers from underprivileged countries. Each fellowship will have a value up to EUR 1,200 as a contribution to costs of attending the Congress. The applicant should prepare either:

  • an abstract of research results, prepared according to the “Instructions for Authors of Abstracts” (see above);

  • the application should include: (1) a short curriculum vitae including present position and research work; (2) a letter of recommendation from a senior staff member at the home institution. Both documents should be arranged in a single pdf-file and uploaded during the abstract submission process.

Applicants apply by ticking the appropriate box when submitting their abstract via the online submission system.

Applicants should have an adequate mastery of English because, if successful, they will discuss their research with experts at the Congress.

It is strongly recommended that those who wish to apply ask for advice as early as possible from the ORCA Committee for Stimulation and Promotion of Research into Caries: Prof. Dr. Marie-Charlotte Huysmans, Department of Dentistry, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands (e-mail vice-president@ orca-caries-research.org).

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