Meeting structure: Last year, our annual meeting looked outward, exploring public engagement. This year we are looking inward, reflecting on the purpose and sustainability of our local society. To do so, over two half days, we invite you to participate in the following:

1. A plenary that will evaluate the Raison d’être and role of local scholarly societies.

2. A late afternoon workshop (over refreshments) to discuss our collective views on the purpose and direction of Protistology-UK (and local societies in general), both within the UK and globally.

3. And most importantly the current breadth of UK (and European) protistology: i.e., your contributions to protistology, through 10 min talks (+5 min questions), and posters that will be displayed during the entire meeting and discussed with people in the breaks.

 

The breadth of -UK: Protistology across the UK is both vibrant and diverse, from Plastids to Parasites, Omics to Organisms, and Evolution to Ecosystems. This breadth is both exciting and daunting, especially as our society is small yet by its remit inclusive:

 

“P-UK exists:

To promote the study, teaching and dissemination of all aspects of protistology.

To provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of results obtained from original research and for an exchange of information on experimental design and techniques.

To encourage developing and novel aspects of protistology.

To represent the interests of protistology on other professional bodies.

To assist young scientists researching in protistology to attend professional meetings”

protistology.org.uk​

 

We hope that you will help us explore this inclusivity and foster interdisciplinarity across the UK (and more widely across Europe), while examining the way forwards.

 

The Audience: Given the nature of our meeting we ask that your research talks are aimed at the entire audience, avoiding jargon and possibly spending a bit more time explaining key concepts that those outside your field will be baffled by – international conferences on your specialty will be the place for you to be more focused. We are encouraging our Early Career Researchers to give talks and More Senior Academics to present posters.  Information on abstract submissions (for both talks and posters) will follow.