CAN A PUBLISHED JOURNAL ARTICLE BE SUBMITTED TO CONFERENCES?
An article is submitted to a journal and accepted for future publication. The authors receive the acceptance letter and the script is waiting for the final publication process (within 4-6 months).
During this time the authors ask the journal if they can present the full text of the article at a conference (which is going to be held before the publication by the journal). They also declare that the conference will not publish the manuscript (the abstract or full text) elsewhere.
COPE advice
In general terms, copyright law is about the original expression of ideas, but not the ideas themselves - so while it might restrict an author from distributing the paper at the session or reading it line-by-line (if copyright has been transferred to the journal), it would not prohibit the author from crafting a new presentation using the ideas from that manuscript.
That said, the answer is dependent on the terms of acceptance with the journal. Does the journal require authors to agree not to disclose the content in any format until after the paper is published? Is the author restricted from sharing the as-yet unpublished manuscript? It would certainly be wise for the authors to avoid sharing the unpublished manuscript with a conference committee to prevent mistaken duplicate publication.
The ICMJE advises that ‘Authors should also consider how dissemination of their findings outside of scientific presentations at meetings may diminish the priority journal editors assign to their work.’ It would also be good practice for the authors to state in the article that the results were presented in part (or in full) at xx conference.
In the interest of transparency we would also recommend that the authors declare to the conference organisers and session participants that the content of the presentation is based on a forthcoming article. Some conferences do not allow the presentation of findings that have already been published, even when the publication date lies between sending in the abstract and the date of the conference.
