FertiCycle Attends ManuREsource Conference
The FertiCycle fellows made a really strong contribution to the ManuREsource conference!
Lars Stoumann Jensen, FertiCycle PI and Professor of Soil Fertility at University of Copenhagen
All of our FertiCycle Early Stage Researchers (ESRs, PhD students) were looking very much forward to meeting up in real life again when we gathered in den Bosch, the Netherlands, this past May to participate in the ManuREsource 2021 conference (postponed from last year, more info here https://www.vcm-mestverwerking.be/en/manuresource/).
As a group, we had only gathered once before, last September in Copenhagen for our annual consortium meeting, so it was great to be able to talk and socialize face-to-face! For most of the ESRs this was also their first scientific conference, and their first chance to present own research results to an international audience, so everybody were excited and perhaps a little nervous about the event!
Participating in the conference was actually part of a PhD Winter School course we have been running online for all the ESRs during the past winter (see our last newsletter and website for further info). In order to prepare the ESRs properly for participating and getting the most out of the conference, we met in den Bosch a day early, where Dave Chadwick (Bangor University) and myself gave a half day pre-conference briefing session. This included basics of participating in scientific conferences, e.g. conference concepts, formats and elements, reasons to attend, choosing the right conference(s) and choosing how you present your work (incl. pros and cons of oral and poster presentations). We also tried to provide some tips and tricks to get the most out of conference participation, how to represent your own poster and maximize it’s impact, how to analyse the conference program, read the abstracts and prioritize presentations / posters and scheduling your individual program. Discussion then revolved around ways of working during a conference, etiquette for interacting with peers and other presenters, benefitting from but also representing the FertiCycle cohort/platform, as well as how to balance planning vs. spontaneity, i.e. aspirations vs. reality. At the end of the day, the ESR felt much more comfortable, well-prepared and at ease with the whole endeavor!
Though only half-way through their PhD research, almost all the FertiCycle ESRs were able to make either oral or poster presentations of their interesting work so far. This enabled them to engage with the other conference participants, who showed a lot interest in their work, asking many questions and delving into intense discussion over the posters. One of our ESR, Stamatis Chrysanthopoulos from ISA - Univ of Lisboa,was even nominated among the top three for the poster award! You can find their presentations at our website www.ferticycle.ku.dk
I heard many positive comments from my network and other participants about the FertiCycle cohort, and I think it was very clear our ESRs made a very significant contribution to the outcome of the ManuREsource conference!
In the week following the conference, we once again met online for a debriefing session. The aim of this was to evaluate and reflect on what everyone had learned and gained from the conference, scientifically as well as personally.
A key scientific take-home message expressed by many was a better understanding of the complexity of challenges related to bio-based fertilizer production and use, from both technical, agronomic, environmental, economic, regulatroy and social perspectives. They had also gained insight into the necessity of interdisciplinary collaboration between various stakeholders, including farmers, advisors, industry and policy-makers (this was a very industry driven conference). A key personal take-home message was to think more of your target audience when designing your poster or presentation to communicate your main message(s) more clearly!
In conclusion, as a PI of the FertiCycle consortium, I am really happy to say that I think the FertiCycle ESRs made a really strong contribution to the ManuREsource conference while at the same time we enabled the ESRs to gain significant learning, both scientifically and personally, from participating in ManuREsource!
