What a pleasure it was to be able to organise a live NWO Life again after two years of corona (2020: cancelled and 2021: online). The great location, Hotel Zuiderduin, offered everything for a fantastic conference, from beautiful rooms and a great exhibition floor, to a real pub and bowling alley for an enjoyable evening. Our fantastic host, Nikita Sajeev, made sure everyone felt welcome from the very first minute. Naturally, the scientific programme was full of interesting speakers, workshops and networking opportunities. In this recap we will name some of the highlights.
Our programme committee selected a scientific programme covering all five tracks. Keynote speaker Marten Scheffer (WUR) talked about stability and resilience of complex systems in the opening lecture. On the second day in the closing lecture, keynote speaker Ines Thiele (National University of Ireland) spoke about a computational modelling approach to whole-body metabolic resilience. Besides the keynote speakers, the programme committee invited two speakers per track to go in depth about their research findings. Concluding each session, there was, of course, room for questions from the audience and, even an opportunity to meet the speakers in the speaker’s corner at the exhibition floor.
In between sessions there was loads to see and experience at the exhibition floor: there were demonstrations of five projects from various Universities of Applied Sciences (HBO) in collaboration with their academic and societal partners, exhibition stands from seven sponsors and 5 partners, and an exposition of the Photo & Visualization Contest: Framing Resilience.
During the poster sessions, the pitch corner was open for pitches. Participants had the opportunity to pitch their poster here. They were followed by our sponsors and partners, who also pitched their ideas and opportunities. The combination of pitches and checking out the posters afterwards gave a new dimension to the regular poster session. It was also great to see all different approaches of this years’ overarching theme Resilience. The poster prize winners of this year were:
- Vanessa Disela (Hubrecht Institute) | first place
- Marco Locarno (TUD) | second place
- David Barnett (MU) | third place
The first place poster prize winner is invited as a poster jury member for NWO Life2023.
A big thank you to all speakers, the dedicated programme committee, the research community members, the sponsors and partners, the organising team, but most of all to the participants. We hope to see you again next year at NWO Life2023:
23 and 24 May 2023 - Hotel Zuiderduin, Egmond aan Zee!
Check out the aftermovie of NWO Life2022:
