If you or a co-author who will be presenting the paper poster will require a visa to attend the conference, please start that process immediately to allow sufficient time for processing.  If you will require a letter indicating that you are participating in the conference as part of the visa application, please contact the Technical Program Chair immediately.

If your abstract is accepted, the following requirements must be met before your paper will be published in the citable Proceedings of the Conference:

You or a co-author must execute a valid assignment of copyright.  This process is normally completed on-line when uploading your paper.  If employer or funding source requirements will prevent use of the standard copyright form, please allow sufficient time before the paper deadline to contact the Technical Program Chair.  There are established modifications to the standard form to accommodate such cases, but execution of modified copyright requires several days at a minimum.  Copyright must be assigned before your paper can be uploaded.

You or a co-author must pay the paper registration fee. This process is normally completed on-line when uploading your paper or poster. All papers or posters in the regular technical program, including those by students, are required to pay a registration fee at the full conference rate. We are unable to offer student discounts for paper registrations. There are however discounts for members of the sponsoring societies and for early registration. The paper/poster registration fee is waived for students accepted to the Student Poster Competition; however, they still go through the registration process when uploading their papers and posters. The paper registration includes one full registration to the conference. A single paid paper registration fee can cover up to three papers that share a common author or co-author. The waived fee for a Student Poster Competition paper cannot be applied to other papers in the program.

We are now accepting abstracts in these four categories:

1. Regular Technical Program: Technical papers are the core of the OCEANS technical programme. An abstract is submitted, and if selected, you are required to write a paper per instructions for publication in IEEE Xplore.

2. Student Poster Competition: Students may submit abstracts to the Student Poster Competition. If an abstract is chosen, the student will then submit a full paper and poster which will be presented during the conference in the student poster section of the exhibit hall. Following the conference, the paper will then be published in IEEE Xplore. This competition is open to any full-time student in an accredited programme. The student must be listed as the lead and corresponding author. Selected applicants, based on abstract reviews, will have travel and registration expenses subsidised. Those abstracts which are accepted into the regular technical program, but are not selected for the SPC, will be invited to submit a paper presentation to a Technical Session in one of the regular conference tracks.

3. Workshop/Panel/Town Hall: Abstracts are being accepted for workshops, panels, and town halls relevant to OCEANS 2025 Chicago. In addition to the abstract guidelines provided further below, these abstract submissions should include the specific event being proposed, the abstract, and expected presenters. Abstracts for these events will be reviewed and considered for addition to the conference agenda in a fashion similar to that of papers. There are no technical paper submissions for workshops, panels, and town halls. All accepted events proposed under this category will be placed within the conference center based on expected number of attendees and will be added to the conference agenda with respect to technical sessions on the same topic. All event participants are asked to register for the conference - one day and full conference registrations will be available.

4. General Poster Session: The General Poster session is open as a request option to all authors (student and non-student). During the submission process of technical papers, authors will have the option to request their preference: oral presentation or poster presentation of the paper. The final decision on how the paper will be presented will be made by the Technical Program Committee based on author preference, reviewers' feedback and other factors. Participants in the General Poster session are still required to upload a final paper PDF for publication in IEEE Xplore. Additionally, General Poster participants must prepare and print the poster according to the IEEE poster template. Authors participating in the poster session will present the poster on-site during a dedicated live session at the conference.

You must upload a paper before the deadline, or an oral or poster presentation of the work will not be scheduled in the Technical Programme of the Conference. This process must be completed through your author dashboard. Upon completing your abstract submission, you will be given login access to your author dashboard. You or a co-author must present the paper or poster during the scheduled time in the Technical Programme of the Conference.

Instructions to Authors