The European Meeting of PhD Students in Evolutionary Biology was held in the Czech Republic for the first time this year, at the conference venue of the OREA Resort Devět Skal. The event was attended by 52 PhD students, four senior researchers as keynote speakers, 2 professional lecturers for workshops and seven members of the organizing team. The first two days focused on interdisciplinary workshops and poster presentations by attendees. The remaining three days were primarily dedicated to scientific talks and an EDI panel, which included discussion over case studies among participants, followed by a presentation about recent publications on unconscious biases and inequality in research by our keynote speaker, Prof. Bibiana Rojas.
Participants of the conference originated from 15 different countries (by location of current employment), including 6 participants from outside of Europe, e.g. Canada, India and Argentina. The high quality of all presented research, lively discussions and questions from participants made this event a valuable experience for everyone involved. Networking activities and dedicated time for personal and scientific exchange provided a fruitful environment for future collaborations, both among the PhD students and with the keynote speakers, who advertised future career opportunities and open positions within their working groups.
The event was a complete success thanks to the generous funding through several grants by “The Company of Biologists”, “Deutsch-Tschechischer Zukunftsfonds”, and the “European Society for Evolutionary Biology”, among other company sponsors and societies. We also thank the Institute of Vertebrate Biology for not only hosting our bank account at the last minute, but also for their assistance with the administration of conference-related finances. Thanks to all these contributions, we were able to complete the announced program without any changes. Invited speakers, as well as students, valued their participation as an important experience for their future careers. Feedback from all participants was extraordinarily positive, which is reflected by the interest of 20 participants from EMPSEB30 to organize next year’s iteration of the conference!
