GPCAP (Good Practice for Conference Abstracts and Presentations) is the industry-authored standard specifically covering how company-sponsored research should be presented at scientific and medical conferences — abstracts, posters, and oral presentation slides. It was originally published in Research Integrity and Peer Review on June 5, 2019 (Vol. 4, Article 11, DOI 10.1186/s41073-019-0070-x), developed by an international working group of publication professionals and medical communication experts, and was updated in 2026, published online April 22, 2026 in Current Medical Research and Opinion (DOI 10.1080/03007995.2026.2656541, open access). This page covers what GPCAP requires — particularly its authorship and byline criteria — and how it relates to the sibling standard GPP 2022.
What GPCAP is, and how it relates to GPP
GPCAP was built explicitly to extend and complement Good Publication Practice (at the time of GPCAP’s original 2019 publication, GPP3, the 2015 version; GPP has since been revised to GPP 2022). GPP governs the full lifecycle of company-sponsored biomedical publications — manuscripts, publication planning, steering committees — and its scope already technically extends to conference abstracts, posters, and presentations. GPCAP exists because that broader guidance does not go deep enough on the specific mechanics of conference outputs: word-limited abstract formats, poster and slide development timelines that are often far more compressed than a manuscript’s, prior-publication and “encore” abstract rules unique to conferences, and the financial transparency and copyright questions that arise when a sponsor is presenting the same dataset across multiple meetings. Where GPP 2022 is the umbrella standard for sponsor-funded publication practice generally, GPCAP is the conference-specific companion standard that gives publication teams, medical writers, and authors operational detail GPP 2022 does not itself provide.
The two standards were developed by different, though overlapping, working groups; both are industry self-regulatory guidelines rather than laws, and both build on the same underlying ICMJE authorship criteria rather than inventing separate authorship tests.
Scope: what counts as a “GPCAP output”
GPCAP applies to conference abstracts, posters, and slide decks for oral presentations at scientific and medical conferences, specifically where the underlying research is sponsored and/or funded by a pharmaceutical, medical device, or biotechnology company. It is written for the same audience as GPP: sponsors and their medical affairs/publications functions, contract research organizations (CROs) and medical communications agencies, professional medical writers, and the named academic or clinical presenters and authors themselves. For the practical mechanics of preparing and submitting an abstract itself (systems, review timelines, presenter registration, word limits, and formatting), see CASRAI’s guides on How to Submit a Conference Abstract and Sample Conference Abstract: Format, Word Limits, and a Template — this page focuses on GPCAP’s governance requirements, not conference-portal mechanics.
Authorship and byline criteria under GPCAP
GPCAP’s central authorship principle is that the bar for being listed as an author on a conference abstract, poster, or set of presentation slides should generally be the same as the bar for authorship on a full manuscript — substantial contribution to the research, and the ability to take accountability for its conduct and for the analysis and interpretation of the findings. In practice this tracks the same ICMJE four-criteria test that GPP 2022 uses for manuscripts: authors should have contributed substantially to the work, been involved in developing the specific abstract, poster, or slide deck, and have approved its final version before it is submitted or presented.
GPCAP does carry one practical accommodation that a manuscript-level standard does not need: some conferences require that the person actually presenting the poster or talk be listed as a named author, even in cases where, under a strict ICMJE reading, that individual’s contribution might otherwise be better recognized in an acknowledgment. GPCAP’s position is that this is a defensible, conference-specific exception rather than a general license to add courtesy or gift authorship — the presenter exception exists to satisfy a conference’s own listing requirement, not to reward seniority or expected reciprocity.
Two further byline-mechanics recommendations are specific to the conference format:
- Author-list length. GPCAP recommends limiting the number of individually named authors on a conference abstract or poster to roughly ten, given the space constraints of the format; for larger collaborative teams, GPCAP recommends listing a study group or consortium name rather than every individual, with the full membership documented elsewhere (for example, in the underlying manuscript or a supplementary list).
- Review and approval. Every named author is expected to have been involved in developing, and to have approved, the final version of whatever specifically bears their name — the abstract text, the poster, or the slide deck — not merely the underlying study. A co-author who approved the manuscript but never saw the poster derived from it has not met GPCAP’s authorship bar for that poster.
As with GPP 2022, anyone who contributed meaningfully to the underlying research but does not meet the full authorship bar for a given conference output should be named in an acknowledgments line rather than silently omitted or added to the byline as a courtesy — the same ghost-authorship/gift-authorship failure modes that GPP 2022 is designed to prevent at the manuscript level apply equally to a poster or abstract byline. See Ghost Authorship vs. Gift Authorship for how the two are distinguished, and COPE’s Flowchart for Suspected Ghost, Guest, or Gift Authorship for how an editor or conference organizer would investigate a suspected case.
Financial transparency and disclosure
GPCAP requires the same category of disclosures GPP 2022 requires at manuscript level, applied to the conference context: the sponsoring company must be identified, any professional medical writing support used in developing the abstract, poster, or slides must be disclosed (typically in an acknowledgment or on the poster/slide itself, per the specific conference’s disclosure conventions), and authors’ financial relationships to the sponsor should be disclosed consistent with the conference’s own conflict-of-interest policy. See Medical Writing in Clinical Trials for how that professional role is defined and disclosed more broadly.
Prior publication and “encore” presentations
Because the same dataset is frequently presented at more than one conference, or presented at a conference and then published as a full manuscript, GPCAP addresses how to handle re-presentation, generally known as an “encore” abstract or poster. The governing principle is transparency: where data has been presented previously, that fact should be disclosed at the point of re-presentation (for example, noting the earlier conference and date), rather than presenting recycled results as if they were being reported for the first time. This sits alongside, and does not replace, the copyright and licensing terms of whichever body published the original abstract or the conference organizer’s own encore-abstract policy, which authors and sponsors are still responsible for checking independently.
What’s new in the 2026 update
The 2026 GPCAP update builds on the 2019 recommendations rather than replacing their underlying authorship logic. It refreshes guidance across the existing sections to reflect how the conference landscape has changed since 2019, and adds coverage in three areas the original version did not address: the use of artificial intelligence tools in developing conference materials, accessibility and inclusivity considerations extending to the involvement of patients, caregivers, and advocacy organizations across the conference lifecycle (from program co-design through presenting findings), and considerations specific to ethics committees. Publication professionals who built internal processes against the 2019 version should treat these as genuine additions, not just a restatement, in the same way GPP 2022 meaningfully expanded on GPP3 rather than lightly revising it.
Is GPCAP mandatory?
No. Like GPP 2022, GPCAP is an industry self-regulatory standard rather than a law or a journal- or funder-imposed mandate. No conference organizer is obligated to enforce it, and there is no independent enforcement body. Its practical force comes from adoption by sponsors’ internal publication-compliance policies, expectations from professional bodies such as the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP), and the same reputational stakes that drive adherence to GPP 2022 — a poster or abstract later shown not to meet accepted good-practice norms carries the same credibility cost as a non-compliant manuscript.
GPCAP vs. GPP 2022 at a glance
- Output covered. GPCAP: conference abstracts, posters, oral-presentation slides specifically. GPP 2022: the full range of sponsor publication outputs, including manuscripts, and it explicitly names conference abstracts, posters, and presentations within its own scope too — the two overlap by design rather than dividing the territory cleanly.
- Authorship test. Both rest on the same underlying ICMJE four-criteria logic; GPCAP adds the conference-specific presenter accommodation and the roughly-ten-author/study-group-name recommendation that a manuscript-oriented standard does not need.
- Distinctive content. GPCAP goes deeper on prior-publication/encore rules, poster- and slide-specific development and review timelines, and conference-format copyright questions; GPP 2022 goes deeper on publication planning, steering-committee governance, and data-access requirements that apply at the level of a full study or program.
- Legal status. Neither is a legal requirement; both are industry self-regulatory standards enforced through professional norms, journal/conference expectations, and sponsor compliance policy rather than statute.
Frequently asked questions
Is GPCAP the same as GPP?
No, though the two are closely related and meant to be used together. GPP (currently GPP 2022) is the general standard for company-sponsored biomedical publications, including manuscripts. GPCAP is the companion standard specifically for conference abstracts, posters, and oral-presentation slides, providing operational detail GPP does not cover, such as encore-abstract rules and conference-specific author-list length recommendations.
Does GPCAP apply to academic-only, non-sponsored research presented at a conference?
GPCAP’s stated scope is company-sponsored research specifically. A conference abstract or poster from an academic study with no commercial sponsor is instead governed by ICMJE’s general authorship criteria and the specific conference’s own submission and authorship policy, though many of GPCAP’s transparency and byline-review principles reflect good practice regardless of funding source.
Can a conference presenter be listed as an author even if they didn’t meet ICMJE’s criteria?
GPCAP allows for this specifically where a conference itself requires the presenter to be a named author as a condition of the presentation slot. It treats this as a narrow, conference-driven exception, not a general basis for adding a courtesy author — the underlying expectation remains that authorship reflects genuine, accountable contribution to the work.
How many authors can be listed on a conference abstract under GPCAP?
GPCAP recommends limiting individually named authors to roughly ten, reflecting typical conference abstract space constraints, and recommends using a study group or consortium name for larger collaborative teams rather than omitting contributors outright.
What’s new in the 2026 GPCAP update?
The 2026 update refreshes the original 2019 recommendations for the current conference landscape and adds new coverage on the use of AI tools in developing conference materials, accessibility and inclusivity (including patient, caregiver, and advocacy-organization involvement across the conference lifecycle), and considerations specific to ethics committees.
Related CASRAI pages
For the broader sponsor-publication standard GPCAP extends, see GPP 2022: Good Publication Practice for Company-Sponsored Medical Publications. For the general ghostwriting/honorary-authorship safeguards that apply across both standards, see Industry-Sponsored Research Authorship: Avoiding Ghostwriting and Honorary Authorship. For the underlying authorship test, see the dictionary entry for ICMJE, and for the two authorship failure modes both standards guard against, see Ghost authorship, Gift authorship, and the comparison page Ghost Authorship vs. Gift Authorship. For the mechanics of preparing and submitting the abstract itself, see How to Submit a Conference Abstract and Sample Conference Abstract: Format, Word Limits, and a Template, and for the underlying concept, see the dictionary entry for Conference abstract.
