EVENTS
FROM OUR GRANTEES
This year our Congress travel grantees from around the world received grants to a total of €93,400 permitting
138 early career researchers – including 12 from Latin America – to attend.
CONGRESS: FEMS2015
This year we celebrated more than 40 years of helping
microbiologists collaborate across the whole of Europe
with our 6th biennial congress in Maastricht. Showcasing
the best of microbiology research, and attracting attendees
from 79 countries, our congress is the place to go for
microbiologists who want to network, catch up on cuttingedge developments, hear talks from international stars in
microbiology and find out what’s happening in other fields.
Held in the Netherlands from 7-11 June, we welcomed almost
2,000 participants, including 138 early career researchers
who received FEMS travel grants. Thanks to a series of
special meetings attendance awards 12 of these joined us
from Latin America. FEMS2015 was a fantastic success,
and we would like to thank our Scientific and Organising
Committees, our professional conference organiser, Kenes,
our sponsors and exhibitors, our invited chairs and speakers,
the excellent volunteers who worked so hard at the venue,
and of course everyone who travelled to join us.
FROM LATIN AMERICA
• FEMS and FEMS JOURNALS took centre stage, the vibrant
booth we shared with OUP providing a focal point for
networking and a meeting place for editorial boards
and Member Societies
• a series of special travel grants, awarded to 12 early
career researchers based in Latin America, allowed us
to build on our existing collaboration with the Latin
American Association for Microbiology/Asociación
Latinoamericana de Microbiología (ALAM)
• creating opportunities for early career researchers
across Europe remained at the heart of the Congress.
We provided €93,400 in travel grants and organised a
grantees lunch attended by grant recipients together
with members of the FEMS Executive Committee, Grants
Board and FEMS Team, and representatives from the
Spanish Society for Microbiology, who welcomed our
visitors from Latin America.
Felipe Del Canto, Young Professor at the University of
Chile, Santiago, Chile
Kiara Iraniparast, Iran
• promoting our Member Societies – and facilitating
interactions between both them and their members – is
also a cornerstone of our activities. All Member Societies
were offered discounted booths and we promoted
Member Society materials both at our booth and via
social media.
• this year we had two Lwoff Award winners who gave
their prize lectures at the Congress: Professor Fernando
Baquero, Spain, Prize Lecture: Transmission: a basic
process in Microbiology; and Prof Rudolf Kurt Thauer,
Germany, Prize Lecture: The microbial methane cycle.
Both delivered fantastic presentations, with Fernando
Baquero’s review on transmission scheduled for
publication in FEMS Microbiology Reviews.
• the recipient of the joint FEMS/ASM Mäkelä-Cassell
Awa rd, Dr. Ember Morrissey, gave her award-winning
talk on “Taxon-specific growth rates are related to
phylogeny in soil bacterial communities” in Maastricht
• we signed a new Memo of Understanding on
cooperation with ASM with whom we also hosted a joint
session on Polymicrobial Biofilms
By far the biggest event in our events calendar, our biennial Congress would not be possible without the backing of our
fantastic sponsors and exhibitors. We would sincerely like to thank all of them for helping us to create such a fantastic
congress in Maastricht, to which we were able to contribute more than €250,000 in travel grants, Member discounts and in
bringing in invited experts to speak at, organise and chair sessions.
18
Pablo Leiva-Novoa, PhD student , Adolfo Ibañez
University of Chile, Santiago
‘I come from a country with economic
problems. I couldn’t come to the
congress without the FEMS congress
grant. I’m very happy to have received
the grant which allows me to network
with professors.’
2015 HIGHLIGHTS
• committed to showcasing scientific excellence, we
invited 163 experts from around the world to present
and chair our scientific programme
‘I feel very fortunate and grateful to
have come to the FEMS Congress to
share my work with other scientists
from other parts of the world.’
FROM EUROPE AND BEYOND
The FEMS2015 twitter feed was a great way to exchange
ideas and raise important issues
• 553 members of FEMS Member Societies (including 270
students) benefited from reduced congress fees totaling
€55,334.
‘With the congress grant I paid the
food and accommodation costs and
so was able to get recognition from
presenting my results.’
‘The congress is an important event
for young scientists. It is the place to
exchange experiences and look for
collaborations with other scientists.
Also attending the lectures by the
senior scientists is informative and
useful. Coming to this congress is
very important for further success.’
Karen Trchounian, Yerevan State University, Yerevan,
Armenia
Our keynote speakers, FEMS2015
TITLE
Bacterial
persistence
NAME
McKinney
How to eat without Dubilier
a mouth...
GIVEN NAME
AFFILIATION
COUNTRY
John D.
École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne,
Global Health Institute, Laboratory of
Microbiology and Microsystems, Lausanne
Switzerland
Nicole
Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology,
Department of Symbiosis, Bremen
Germany
Microbial
symbioses with
marine animals
Giant viruses
Claverie
Jean-Michel
CNRS Aix Marseille University, Mediterranean
Institute of Microbiology (FR 3479), Structural
and Genomic Information Laboratory
(UMR7256), Marseille
France
(Human)
microbiome
Jansson
Janet K.
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL),
Earth and Biological Sciences Directorate,
Biological Systems Science Division, Richland
USA
Plant-fungal
pathogens
de Wit
Pierre
Wageningen University, Department of Plant
Sciences, Laboratory of Phytopathology,
Wageningen
The
Netherlands
Mechanisms
of bacterial
secretion
Waksman
Gabriel
University College London, Department for
Structural and Molecular Biology and Institute
of Structural and Molecular Biology, Birkbeck,
University of London
UK
19