Spider Conference Coming to UK

Every three years the International Society of Arachnology (ISA) organizes a large international conference (the next one is in USA, 2016), with regional (Europe, USA, etc.) meetings being hosted by local societies and held in each of the intervening two years. The next (30th) European meeting will be held in the UK and hosted by Dr Sara Goodacre and colleagues at the University of Nottingham in 2017, as confirmed at the recent European Society of Arachnology conference just held in the Czech Republic. There is no website as yet, but one will be made available in due course and a link will be available via the British Arachnological Society home page and will also be the subject of a new blog post here, so please do not bombard Sara with questions at this very early stage... as she will no doubt not have the answers yet (this is BREAKING NEWS!).

Logos of the European Society of Arachnology (ESA), the British Arachnological Society (BAS) and the International Society of Arachnology (ISA)

It will represent a hiatus of 20 years since the last European meeting was held in the UK (Edinburgh, 1997), so many of us are looking forward to being able to attend this meeting without the need for jetting off overseas. Siri Scientific Press will be official supporters of the meeting and will be editing and publishing the abstracts book, in addition to providing books as prizes for the best student presentation competition.

Anybody is welcome to attend these meetings, which are very friendly gatherings and great fun (Yuri Marusik's Russian Party has become so popular it is now formally scheduled into the meeting program!), as well as being educational and an excellent opportunity for like-minded individuals to share new ideas and develop new collaborations.

Yuri in the EARLY stages of preparing his Russian Party festivities. There is a surprising absence of liquid refreshment on this table, but as mentioned ... this is very early stage preparation!

So, congratulations to Sara for winning the bid to host this event and thanks in advance for all the hard work she is going to have to put in to make it happen!