Chères et chers membres de la SFE² enregistré.e.s pour le congrès EAB,

Certain.e.s d’entre vous nous ont fait remonter des questions concernant la situation extrêmement complexe à laquelle nous devons faire face: l’évolution récente de la situation sanitaire et les restrictions de déplacement renforcées à quelques jours à peine de EAB2021. Le choix de vous rendre à Liverpool est à ce jour un choix personnel à prendre en connaissance de causes (voir email détaillé de la BES sur les nouvelles restrictions d’arrivée sur le territoire UK) mais aussi un choix professionnel dépendant de vos tutelles (validation des ordres de mission. L’INRAE doit se positionner ce jour à titre d’exemple).

Face à la situation, la BES vous a proposé des alternatives qu’ils ont dû mettre en place très rapidement avec des contraintes techniques et temporelles évidentes. Ils ont fait au mieux, voici ci-dessous quelques informations en plus sur leurs propositions d’alternatives. N’hésitez pas à les contacter via l’adresse ci-dessous pour toutes questions/interrogations,

Plus que jamais nous voici confronté à ce challenge « Ecology/Evolution across borders »..

« We’ve been working hard in a fairly fast paced environment to make the best decisions, taking into consideration the available evidence on the new covid variant.

We looked at a range of options in light of what is currently known about the new strain and decided that it was still possible to run the meeting despite the likelihood that many delegates based outside the UK will not be able to attend in person. However, we do still expect some non-UK delegates to take part in-person as well as those from the UK. The BES Events Team are working extremely hard to minimise the impact of this but some disruption to the programme is inevitable. At the moment it is not possible to quantify the financial impact on the conference budget as we have a full refund policy in place for those who are unable to attend the meeting in-person because of Covid restrictions, however, it will be considerably less than cancelling the whole meeting at this late stage.

The safety of participants is paramount and so we have enhanced our Covid secure measures including the requirement for all participants, regardless of vaccine status, to provide proof of a negative Covid test before registering at the meeting.

There is lots of up to date information here: https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/events/ecology-across-borders-2021/frequently-asked-questions/ .

For presentations, we simply do not have the time to adapt to allowing people to do live presentations for such a huge number, when events start next week. We can offer people eposters, as we have communicated, but again, as the conference platform goes live next week, we have little time to play with in terms of extending this deadline. It is worth noting that the offer of eposters includes the option to record a short talk and there is more information here: https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org//wp-content/uploads/2021/11/EAB2021-Online-poster-and-lightning-talk-presentation-guidelines.pdf

Please ensure that any delegates get in touch with us to discuss options, so we can make sure we record any cancellations etc, via the following email address: events@britishecologicalsociety.org