Call for Abstracts

Abstract Due Date: 14 October 2025

Downloadable version of the Call for Abstracts

Abstract Template

Submit Your Abstract Here

The NFCS, heralded as the premiere forum for discussing the entire kill web, has served the Integrated Fire Control - Community of Interest (IFC-COI) for over three decades. Due to its restricted and no-foreign format, the NFCS is in a unique position to cultivate lasting relationships between the forward operators, service communities, warfare centers, laboratories, and our industry partners.

Initially launched in 1992 by the Air Force, and subsequently supported by the Army, Navy, Marines, and the Missile Defense Agency, the NFCS is now an industry sponsored event. The 2026 event features the U.S. Army as the lead technical advisor. The NFCS has been successful in engaging the multi-services, industry, and academia in synergistic relationships and discussions. With continued emphasis on budgets, the government has an increasing reliance on cooperative research efforts. The size and focus of the NFCS promotes a greater number of productive contacts and collaborative relationships, provides an overview of a larger number of external research efforts, and provides U.S. researchers with a deeper understanding of the state-of-the-art and the warfighter's perspective. The net result is the potential reduction in duplication of work completed by academia, industry, and the services, as well as the promotion of scientific advancements resulting from joint efforts that could save the DoD valuable time and financial resources, while defining innovative solutions to technology challenges.

The kill web is a joint operating concept that integrates multiple kill chains across various military domains, such as land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace. The employment of the kill web improves the flexibility and resilience of the engagement process and allows for the rapid sharing of intelligence and targeting information among different military services and allies. Kill web phases include: prepare & configure, surveil, detect, track, identify, engage, and assess & defend. Topic areas in the 2026 Call for Abstracts are focused on specific functional areas that fall under the phases of the Kill Web and are listed below. All submissions must align with at least one of the topic descriptions and should support the 2026 theme Transformation in Contact: “Think Big, Start Small, Go Fast.”* (*Quote attributed to Gen. James E. Rainey, Military Review, Army University Press). Both near term and far term capabilities will be considered, but the theme emphasizes NFCS’s desire for capability focused discussions with specific thought on how technology can/will integrate with the warfighting force.

We encourage you to engage in this event and look forward to seeing you in Lake Buena Vista in March 2026!

2026 Topic Areas:

Abstract & Submission Requirements Checklist

• Abstracts must be unclassified. If appropriate, be sure to have your derivative classifier do a sanity check on your unclassified abstract prior to submitting it.
• Abstracts must carry a distribution level of A, C, or D. If your presentation material is not derived from work done under DoD funding or oversight, please use your organization's equivalent to the distribution level below.
  A = Approved for public release, distribution unlimited
  C = U.S. Government Agencies and their contractors only
  D = DoD and U.S. DoD contractors only
• When you upload your abstract, please do not password protect your file. The submission site is cleared for CUI and has end-to-end encryption with a security scan upon upload. If you submit a file that is password protected, it will not upload and your form will not submit.
• Abstracts should be no more than 400 words long.
• Abstracts must include the title of your abstract, a full distribution statement in the body of your submission, and proper CUI markings and control blocks as applicable. These do not count towards the 400 word limit.
• Abstracts must contain an unclassified outline containing the key points of your presentation (this does not count against the 400 word limit).
• Abstracts should clearly express:
  1. objective,
  2. relevance to the proposed kill web elements,
  3. scope, and
  4. conclusions of your presentation.
• Abstracts must be relevant to one or more of the topics described on the following pages.
• Abstracts should clearly demonstrate relevance to the Symposium theme, Transformation in Contact: "Think Big, Start Small, Go Fast."
• Abstracts that do not support the theme or at least one of the topics, or do not provide technical (vs. marketing) content, may be rejected.
• Please do not submit an abstract unless you have a clearance at the secret level or higher, or have a colleague with this clearance level that can present your material for you.
• If you find it impossible to submit a worthwhile abstract at the unclassified level at distribution levels A, C, or D, please contact Michelle Williams at mkw@blue52productions.com for potential alternative options.

Note: Presentations that contain content that is more restrictive than unclassified, are clearly associated with the topics, and are relevant to the warfighter needs will have the highest probability of selection.

Notification & Presentation Information

You will be contacted regarding the status of your acceptance by mid to late November. Abstract titles will be included in the program, therefore they must be cleared for public release. You will have a chance to submit a Distribution A title after notification of selection. Abstracts will be selected for oral presentation, alternate oral presentation, or poster presentation. An alternate oral presentation is a presentation in stand-by mode until an oral presentation slot becomes available, and alternates should also plan to present their material as a poster presentation. Poster presentations are an important facet of the NFCS and provide dedicated one-on-one exchanges between the presenter and the attendees. Oral presentations slots are limited to 20 minutes which includes time for questions and transition to the next speaker. Please note that selection and presentation of an abstract, whether oral or poster, does not waive any applicable registration fees. Please do not wait for notification of acceptance to submit a travel approval request within your organization. Start that process now!