The Sexual Violence Research Initiative is proud to announce the 3rd international conference on sexual violence research, SVRI Forum 2013. The aim of SVRI Forum 2013 is to promote promising practices for preventing and responding to sexual and intimate partner violence. The Forum 2013 will be co-hosted by Partners for Prevention.The scope of the SVRI Forum will expand in 2013 to include both sexual violence and intimate partner violence. This extension of the scope of the SVRI Forum encourages examination of the overlapping nature of these acts of violence. The SVRI Forum 2013 will also link the child protection and SGBV fields and promote cross sectoral dialogue and exchange on primary prevention of child abuse and neglect especially when linked to future prevention of sexual violence perpetration and victimization.The objectives of SVRI Forum 2013 are to:

• Promote excellence in research on sexual and intimate partner violence
• Bridge gaps between research, policy and practice
• Provide opportunity and space for speakers and audience to interact and learn from high-level presentations and developments in the field
• Encourage discussion of new ideas for services and prevention responses with the principal elements derived from evidence and expert opinions
• Encourage networking and sharing of knowledge across fields and sectors, including across violence against women and violence against children
• Provide a space where participants feel supported to talk about challenges in undertaking research on sexual and intimate partner violence

Researchers, activists, donors, service providers and policy-makers from across all sectors are therefore invited to submit abstracts, according to the SVRI Forum 2013 themes:

• Sexual and other forms of gender-based violence in conflict and crisis
• HIV and sexual violence
• Child sexual abuse, exploitation and gender based violence
• Addressing IPV in low- and middle-income countries
• Trafficking and sexual violence

Within these themes, abstracts which include a life-course perspective; address under-researched areas such as disability and sexual abuse; as well as abstracts which address men and masculinities; and gender and prevention of sexual violence and IPV are particularly encouraged. Priority will also be given to abstracts that detail responses and prevention programmes that incorporate multi-sectoral and cross sectoral strategies or have findings of interventions and longitudinal studies.Participants are encouraged to use the SVRI Sexual Violence Research Agenda as guide in developing abstracts. In the coming weeks more details about the venue will be given, call for abstracts, pre-conference workshops, prize-giving and more. If you have any queries, please contact svri@mrc.ac.za [2].