Young EPIZONE meeting at 10th AM

The session was divided in three modules: 1: Icebreaking game, 2: Workshop “Promoting research, from the concept to the product” and 3: presentations ‘Promoting research’.

Icebreaking game
We started with an Icebreaking game, where we had the opportunity to meet the rest of the mates and to leave the shyness behind, because the game consisted on making a set of questions about specific characteristics of the rest of the assistants. You had to find e.g. somebody who is vegetarian, or someone who likes to play football, and so on… This part of the meeting was very exciting and overall useful, because we achieved the main goal of this game: everybody was talking each other, not only with the familiar faces! On a personal note I consider it is one of the most brilliant ideas carried out in a meeting.

Workshop
The second part of this meeting consisted on a workshop entitled “Promoting research, from the concept to the product” given by the doctor Andrés Montero, Head of the European Projects Office at the Spanish National Institute for Agricultural and Food Research and Technology, from INIA. He gave us an overview of how to get funding resources in the European Projects, how to apply for International Fellowships and many other related topics. We could learn some details about this part of the science, unfamiliar for a lot of young scientists.

Promoting Research
In the third part of the session, three renowned speakers gave a talk focused on “Promoting Research”.
Professor Luis Enjuanes, Head of the Coronavirus Laboratory at the National Center of Biotechnology of the Spanish National Research Council (CNB-CSIC), gave his point of view of the scientific career in a research center with a brilliant speech about Coronaviruses.
Professor Esperanza Gomez-Lucia, lecturer of Microbiology & Immunology in the Veterinary Faculty at the University Complutense of Madrid (UCM), shared her experiences teaching animal health with a profitable talk.
And the doctors Mercedes Mouriño and Alicia Urniza from EU Biologicals, Veterinary Medicine R&D Global Biologics at Zoetis gave an overview of the vicissitudes that they experience in the private sector in a superb talk.

Awards
Evelien Germeraad from Wageningen Bioveterinary Research (formerly known as Central Veterinary Institute) in Lelystad was awarded with a Travel Grant by Cultek for her promising career and Tamara Jabbar from The Pirbright Institute for the best poster of the meeting. See poster here.

Gala dinner
About the Gala dinner, this was held in Casino Gran Via. It is a lovely building placed in the heart of Madrid, and people had the chance to savour innovative food while enjoying a glass of wine or beer.

11th AM
Concerning the next EPIZONE meeting, 11th AM in 2017, it will be held in Paris, France. The Young EPIZONE core group has to meet soon in order to choose a new YE Chair from ANSES, the host institute of the 11th AM, and to prepare the YE meeting next year in Paris.
It was a pleasure to me having taken part in the development of this wonderful YE meeting in Madrid.

Alejandro Marín López
Chair Young EPIZONE core group