Each year, on the second Tuesday and Wednesday of February, the Netherlands Ecological Research Network (NERN) organises her annual conference, the Netherlands Annual Ecology Meeting (NAEM). This conference is particularly geared towards people working in the field of ecology and/or evolution. It aims to strengthen the network of ecologists in the Netherlands, Belgium, and surrounding countries and provides an overview of the work carried out by the people in the network.
Normally, the NAEM meeting is two full days, each day consisting of a plenary session, in which a Dutch/Flemish and an international world leader present their view on a specific topic in ecology or evolution, two sets of five parallel sessions (including more workshop-like sessions), and a poster session. Parallel sessions generally consists of 6 oral presentations, thus leading to a total of approximately 125 oral presentations. On average, we have about 75-100 scientific poster presentations during the meeting. On Tuesday evening, a more relaxed and thought-provoking presentation is generally scheduled.
In 2021, however, the NAEM meeting will be organised in a somewhat different form, due to the Covid-19 outbreak. After consultation with the NERN community, the NERN Board, and the NAEM organising committee, we have decided to offer an online event across the two days 9 and 10 February 2021. This event will particularly provide a space for young(er) scientists to present their work to peers and it aims to provide a networking opportunity for ecologists around. Rather than going for long, exhausting online lectures, we have decided to develop a format of thematic sessions consisting of short junior scientist talks with “a head and a tail”, and separate poster pitch sessions. These online activities will be flanked by some offline physical meet-ups in several of the NERN hubs. For more details, check out the programme here below.
