Congress News
16 August 2010
The Congress is now over, and from all the feedback we have received, it seems to have gone extremely well. I have now modified the web site considerably to concentrate on the aspects of the congress that are relevant for the future - The Hamilton Award, the Poster Prizes - and to providedownloadable or viewable resources - The Information & Program book, the Abstract book, and the poster slide presentations (which were used to advertsie the posters throughout the congress).
All of the other pages that were here in the run-up to the congress can still be found from links on the new "archive" page.
6 August 2010
Queen-worker interactions - your chance for lunch with a leader in social insect biology
We are pleased to announce that most of our plenary speakers and many other senior scientists have agreed to take part in an experiment where students or postdocs will be able to "book" them for lunch during the congress. The plan is to make this rather informal, with a sheet in the information area where students and post-docs can sign up to chat with a senior scientist over lunch (the senior scientist will then decide exactly where and when). Below is a list of those who have agreed to participate so far, but there will also be the opportunity for other senior scientists to put their name forward at the congress.
Tuesday Lunch:
Gene Robinson, Deborah Gordon
Wednesday Lunch:
Alan Andersen, Laurent Keller, Lotta Sundström
Thursday Lunch:
Paul Eggleton, Hanna Kokko, Paul Schmid-Hempel, Juergen Heinze, Anna Dornhaus, Tom Seeley, Joan Strassmann and Dave Queller
Friday Lunch:
Rebeca Rosengaus, Susanne Foitzik, Sara Helms Cahan
Visiting Copenhagen Zoological Museum
Lars Vilhelmsen, curator of Hymenoptera at Copenhagen Zoological Museum will be leading a tour of the Museum on Wednesday afternoon for those not involved in excursions. He will meet anyone interested at the information/registration desk at the Panum institute at 13:00 on Wednesday afternoon and walk over to the museum with anyone who would like a tour. If you would like to let Lars know that you are interested in taking part in this tour, or would like to arrange a vist to the museum collections at another time, please e-mail him on LBVilhelmsen@snm.ku.dk
For more information, see this page
4 August 2010
You can view or downlaod a PDF file with maps and information about how to get to your hotel/hostel and the congress venues here.
2 August 2010
On-line registration has now closed, but it is still possible to register on-site at the congress. Payment for on-site registration should be in cash or using credit card (Visa or Mastercard, 6% credit card fee).
The deadline for the receipt of poster advertisement slides has also now passed.
15 July 2010
Inevitably there are a few errors that have crept into the Information and Abstract book, and chages that have happened after it was sent to the printers. The on-line version of the Information & Abstract book will be kept updated, as far as possible, but the printed version will require a few errata, corrigenda and addenda, which can be found on a dedicated page.
14 July 2010
A list of poster presentations is now available for download or viewing. As well as titles and authors, this gives the codes that will be used to identify poster boards.
13 July 2010
The Information & Program book for the congress, including the detailed program, is now available for download or on-line viewing. Please note that this is an 2.8 Mb 86 page PDF, so think carefully before printing the whole thing. All delegates will receive a printed copy at the congress.
The book also includes details of the Hamilton Award 2010, which we are pleased to be able to announce will be given to Charles D. Michener.
25 June 2010
We are now finalizing the text of the abstract and program books, so if you have not yet registered, but intend to do so, please make sure you register before 4 July if you want to have your name printed in the list of participants.
Visas
Visas to visit Denmark are not required for citizens of European Union countries and their dependencies, or citizens of the U.S.A., Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Uruguay or Venezuela.
Citizens of most other countries will require a visa to enter Denmark, unless they already have a valid visa for another Schengen country. Please check this link to see whether this applies to you.
Details on how to apply for a visa can be found at the Danish Immigration Service web site:
http://www.nyidanmark.dk/en-us/coming_to_dk/visa/how-to/
If you require an invitation from the organizers of IUSSI2010 in order to apply for a visa, please contact us at IUSSI2010@bio.ku.dk
11 June 2010: Deadlines in the run up to the congress
On-line selection and payment for hotels at the time of registration will remain open until 1 July 2010. After this date the hotels will start to release the rooms that we have reserved for pblic booking, but if you require accommodation, please contact our partner company, DMC (iussi@dmcdenmark.dk) to ask them what is still available.
On-line registration for the congress will remain open until 1 August 2010. We are closing it a few days before the start of the congress, as we will need to have accurate numbers for the congress banquet (included in the registration fee) at that point.
On-site registration at the congress will, however, be possible, with payment in cash or by credit card (with a 6% surcharge for credit card payments). We cannot, however, guarantee thatthse who register on-site will be able to attend the banquet (although we hope that we will be able to arrange this for a limited number of on-site registrants).
It will also be possible to book and pay for the excursions on-site, but ONLY on Sunday 8 August, so please try to arrange your excursion before you arrive if possible. Again, payment for excursions will be via cash or credit card (with a 6% surcharge for the latter).
9 June 2010: Abstract decisions; Symposium program now on-line
We have today sent out e-mails informing all those who submitted an abstract whether they have been selected for an oral or poster presentation. We are happy that we have been able to accommodate all requests for poster presentation, but as is usual in such international congresses, the number of abstracts submitted for oral presentations far exceeded the number of talk slots available (we had a total of 391 abstract submissions for 164 talks). This means that the symposium organizers have had a very tough job to choose those abstracts that will be offered an oral presentatation., which they have performed maginificently. All those who applied for an oral presentation, but were not selected by the symposium organizers for a talk, have instead been offered a poster presentation.
The distribution of symposia across the congress has now also been decided, and was posted on the program page as well as on the symposia page last week.
1 June 2010: Invoice payment deadline
Payment by invoice is due today, and those of you who have not already paid should have received a reminder about this. Our partner company, DMC, are currently dealing with a massive number of last minute payment requests, so please be patient if you have not received an acknowledgement from them yet.
On-line registration will remain open right up to the start of the congress, but payment from now on will only be possible via credit card (Visa or Mastercard).
The final program for the symposia will be on-line shortly.
4 May 2010: Abstract submission is now closed
Abstract submission is now closed. On-line registration will remain open until the start of the congress, but submission of abstracts is no longer possible
Abstracts will be sent out to symposium organizers as soon as possible after they have all been checked, and the symposium organizers will then select those abtracts that will be offered an oral or poster presentation. If you submitted an abstract, you can expect to hear back from the organizers as to whether it has been accepted for an oral or poster presentation around the beginning of June.
Invited speakers and plenary speakers have until the end of May to submit their abstracts if they have not already done so.
3 May 2010: Update
Abstract submission should now be open again - sorry for the inconvenience. Abstract submission will now stay open until 12:00 CET on 4 May (Midnight on 3 May Samoan time). This will be the final deadline for abstract submission.
3 May 2010: More last minute abstract submission problems
Unfortunately yesterday's error was not resolved correctly, and while registration was reopened, abstract submission was not. We hope to have abstract submission open again as soon as possible, but this will not be before 08:00 CET. When we have abstract submissio reestablished, we will then keep it open for 24 hours - more details will appear here.
Those of you who managed to register today, but could not submit an abstract will be contacted by the organizers with instructions on how to submit your abstract.
2 May 2010: Last minute abstract submission problems
Due to an error, registration and abstract submission were both shut down at midnight CET last night, which was before the agreed deadline. It will take a few hours to get abstract submission opened again (c. 14:00 CET), but if you have been trying to submit an abstract, please try again after this time. We will then keep abstract submission open until 12:00 CET on 3 May (Midnight on 2 May Samoan time), and registration (without abstract submission) will stay open beyond that time.
If you have any additional problems with abstract submission, please contact IUSSI2010@bio.ku.dk , and we will try to sort them out as quickly as possible.
15 April 2010: SAS is the congress airline
We are pleased to announce that SAS airlines is now the official airline for the congress. This means that delegates can book fares with a 2-10% discount when booked through the congress web site, or using the event code DK1040 in the SAS Conference and Event booking engine.
Copenhagen is the main hub for SAS operations, and SAS is the largest carrier in the region, so we are very pleased that they have agreed to be the offficial airline.
See the "Arriving by air" page for more details
18 March 2010
A new hotel has been added to the booking system, The Cabinn Express, which has sinle rooms (+ breakfast) available for DKK 605 per night. The hotel is a little further outside the town centre than the other hotels, but is no further from the congress venue. See the accommodation and maps pages for more details.
We have now added a link to the list of those registered to attend the congress, "list of registrants". Since this accesses the registration database, which is on a separate server, it will open in a new window, and you should then select "Participants registered" in the left hand menu.
2 March 2010
Early-bird regsitration is now closed.
22 February 2010
First of all, a quick reminder that the deadline for registration at the cheaper "early-bird" rate for the XVI Congress of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects, to be held in Copenhagen 8-14 August 2010, is 1 March 2010. Please note that the cost of registration will increase after this date for "full" registrations, but that the price of student registrations will remain unaltered. Student prices apply to all those studying for a higher degree (ie. undergraduates/bachelor students, Master's students and Ph.D.students, but not Post Docs).
Please see the registration page on the congress web site for more details of fees and what is included in registration.
Please also note that abstracts should be submitted at the time of registration, so please make sure you have prepared your abstract, on the form provided on the website, before you start the registration process. This effectively means that the deadline for abstract submission for those wanting to register at the reduced rate is also 1 March 2010.
The deadline for abstract submission for those registering at the full-price or student rate is 1 May 2010
Secondly, we have now set up dedicated forums for the congress, where participants and potential participants can discuss the congress (e.g. to find room mates for shared accommodation, to share travel tips etc.). These can be found at: http://iussi2010.phpbb3now.com/ and is also linked from the main navigation pane on the web site.
Thirdly, we have managed to negotiate price reductions for some of the hotels for the congress, which are now reflected on the accommodation page. Anyone who has already booked accommodation at these hotels through the congress web site should be receiving a refund of he difference in price, if they have not already done so. We hope that we may still be able to negotiate reductions with the other hotels and hostels, but these are unlikely to be in place before the early-bird registration deadline (refunds will again be given if there are price reductions for accommodation already booked).
2 February 2010: Hardship grant receipt deadline has now passed
The deadline for receipt of hardship grants was yesterday. All those who applied will receive an acknowledgement in the next few days. The decision about who will be awarded the grants will be made by the grant committee in the next couple of weks, so that any unsuccessful applicants will still be able to register at the early, discount rate.
19 January 2010: Second announcement and call for abstracts, changes to hardship grant eligibility
A PDF of the second announcement for the congress, which gives an overview of some of the information available on this web site, is now available, and can be downloaded here.
Following several queries, we have decided to increase the scope of the grants available to young researchers to attend the congress to also encompass those from upper-middle income countries (as defined by the world bank). Please see the reised list of eligible countries on the "hardship grants" page. We have also decided to allow applications from masters and Ph.D. students, if a good case can be made that the grant will be beneficial to their career. Please note that the dedline for grant applications remains 1 February 2010, so there are only 10 days to make applications.
15 January 2010: Credit card payment option now available
You can now also pay for registration, accommodation and excursions using a credit card as well as via invoice. Payment can be made using VISA or MasterCard/EuroCard.
4 December 2009: Registration now open
Registration for the congress is now open, a little later than hoped. The delay was caused by some problems implementing payment by credit card, and these problems are still not solved, but we have decided to go on-line in any case, with only the option for payment via invoice, to prevent further delays. We expect the credit card payment option to be implemented in the next week or so.
Please take a look around to acquaint yourself with what we can offer, how to register and submit abstracts, and the various deadlines.
13 November 2009: Ross Crozier, 1943-2009
It is with great sadness that we have learned of the sudden death of Ross Crozier yesterday while at work at James Cook University, Queensland. Ross was one of the great pioneers of modern social insect research, and was a key figure in many fields, not least the application of molecular genetic techniques in social insect research, and the theoretical exploration of many aspects of social evolution. He was the recipient of the IUSSI's Hamilton Award at the last IUSSI international symposium in Washington in 2006, and was a member of the program committee for the 2010 congress.
His approachability, good humour, and ability to present complex issues in an easily understandable way will be missed as much as his exemplary research.
We have received many requests, and suggestions for how, to honour him at IUSSI2010. We have decided that there will be an additional plenary talk remembering Ross, which Pekka Pamilo has agreed to give.
The Organizing Committee