My office cake research has had its first foray into academia with a poster presentation at The Nutrition Society/Royal Society of Medicine joint winter meeting. It was well-received and generated plenty of questions (and smiles and nods of recognition).

For anyone unfamiliar with posters at academic conferences, here’s how it works.  The conference organisers put out a ‘call for abstracts’ several months in advance of the event. Researchers submit an abstract (short summary) of a new study and, if accepted, the researchers are invited to present their work in the form of a poster during set periods of the conference.  The poster needs to be designed to communicate the key points of the research so that it catches delegates’ eyes so they engage in discussion with the researcher. It’s a great way to showcase new research, often before it is published.

An abstract has subsequently been published in the journal The Proceedings of the Nutrition Society.