The idea of trying to organize a joined conference between ESDAR, EVSSAR and ECAR has been on our minds for quite a while. As everybody knows: good ideas are like wine and cheese: they take time to mature. We wish to acknowledge our predecessor presidents and boards who paved the way.
There are plenty of good reasons for organizing the conferences of our three Entities together:
- Transversality: we are all the European Repro family! Whatever our subspecialty, preferred species to work with or whether we are practitioners, scientists, students, residents, or from academia, there is one common theme and interest we all share: Reproduction with a big “R”! That very same “R” that can be found in the acronym of all three Entities: together we can share knowledge, learn from each other and form new connections for future collaborations
- Congeniality: this will be a great opportunity to see colleagues and friends we do not always get a chance to spend time with, because we did not attend the same congress that year
- Science: together we can build up a wider and better scientific program, one with crossspecies talks and a wide panel of parallel sessions to satisfy all interests
- Education: research students and residents can seek out networking opportunities and mentors within the broad field of reproduction. This is crucial for your personal and professional development, and there is a lot of catching up to do after the pandemic years with low conference activity and impersonal digital seminars!
- Environment: are you among those attending more than one of the big European conferences? How about flying to one destination only? Together we can reduce our impact on the planet
- Economics: For those attending, this will mean one single flight ticket to buy, and one stay to pay for only; and for the Entites it will allow scale savings on the organization of the conference, sharing of the heavy workload for the board of each entity, better visibility of the bigger event, a more attractive arena for sponsors
And for those of us who only attend part of conference dedicated to one of the three entities? Well, we won’t be saving money or the planet this year, but we still will have the same quality conference we are used to, with all the extras of this joined venture!
As you can see, this idea is like good wine (or cheese)! We are convinced that the 1st ESAR will be the first of, hopefully, many more to come and we are thrilled at the opportunity of seeing you all in September in Nantes to share it with you!
Andrea Del Carro, President of EVSSAR
Renée Båge, President of ESDAR
Stefan Deleuze, President of ECAR