Everything you don´t learn in the lab
Scientific poster design and presentation
Topic area
Science communication
Format
Online or in-house workshop
Workload
Online: 4 x 2.5 h-webinars plus self-paced work on our learning platform
In-house: One workshop day
Trainer
Karin Bodewits, Philipp Gramlich or Jo Richers
Target group
PhD students and postdocs
In brief
Design effective scientific posters, practise your research pitch, and receive individual feedback – even after the workshop.
A poster should start a conversation
You’ve spent months or even years on your research. Now you have just a few seconds to catch someone’s attention at a conference. Will your poster make them stop?
A successful scientific poster is much more than an attractive collection of graphs and text. It should spark curiosity, communicate your key findings, and invite people to discuss your research. Unlike a scientific talk, a poster presentation is a dialogue, not a monologue. This requires a different approach to both design and communication.
In this interactive workshop, you’ll learn to design visually appealing scientific posters, communicate complex data clearly, and adapt your message to different audiences. You’ll also explore how digital tools can make your posters more engaging.
But designing a great poster is only half the story! You’ll also practise pitching your research, using storytelling techniques to engage visitors and turn poster presentations into scientific conversations.
In this workshop, you’ll learn about:
Scientific poster design
- What makes a scientific poster visually appealing and effective?
- Poster structure, layout, colours, typography, and visual impact
- Selecting and presenting scientific data clearly
- Creating compelling graphical abstracts
- Designing interactive posters using QR codes, recorded pitches, and digital engagement tools
Poster pitching and presentation
- Developing a clear and engaging poster pitch
- Using storytelling techniques to communicate your key message
- Adapting your pitch to different audiences and levels of scientific expertise
- Turning poster presentations into interactive scientific discussions
- Essential self-presentation and networking skills for conferences
Individual feedback
Receive individual feedback on your conference abstracts, graphical abstracts, and scientific posters – even after the workshop, when preparing for your next conference.
Workshop format and materials
We offer this workshop online internationally and in-house at universities and research institutions in Germany and across Europe.
Online: Four interactive 2.5-hour webinars, combined with self-paced work on our learning platform. Alongside the webinar phase, participants have three weeks to deepen their learning and can receive individual feedback from the trainers.
In-house: Two interactive workshop days. All participants receive a PDF script of the course, allowing them to revisit the material afterwards.
More information and next steps
This workshop can be combined with Presentation skills for scientists and Self-presentation and networking to give the integrated 3-5 day programme At the conference.
Interested in diving deeper into the topic of conference formats? You might be interested in reading about our Research project: Conference formats.
Do you want to see a preview of the Online Workshop?
Do you want to read more about this topic? Nicolas Rowe wrote a book about Academic & Scientific Poster Presentation.
A poster presentation is a very brief form of science communication. We´ve written the article The core of your presentation about this topic, published in Nachrichten aus der Chemie.