6th European Student Council Symposium (ESCS): overcoming obstacles to enhance virtuality, connectivity, inclusivity and community engagement

Gabriel J Olguín-Orellana; Sofia Papadimitriou; Alberto Langtry Yáñez; Pradeep Eranti; Rosario Del Carmen Flores-Vallejo; Ana I Castillo-Orozco; Kalaumari Mayoral-Peña; R Gonzalo Parra

doi:10.12688/f1000research.40666.1

6th European Student Council Symposium (ESCS): overcoming obstacles to enhance virtuality, connectivity, inclusivity and community engagement

F1000Res. 2021 Jan 22:10:ISCB Comm J-41. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.40666.1. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Gabriel J Olguín-Orellana¹, Sofia Papadimitriou², Alberto Langtry Yáñez³, Pradeep Eranti⁴, Rosario Del Carmen Flores-Vallejo⁵, Ana I Castillo-Orozco⁶, Kalaumari Mayoral-Peña⁷, R Gonzalo Parra⁸

Affiliations

¹ Center for Bioinformatics, Simulations and Modeling, Universidad de Talca., Talca, Chile.
² Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.
³ Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), Madrid, Spain.
⁴ Université de Paris, Paris, France.
⁵ Department of Biomedical engineering and Mechatronics, Universidad del Valle de México, Campus Toluca, Toluca, Mexico.
⁶ Department of Human Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
⁷ School of Engineering and Sciences, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Queretaro, Mexico.
⁸ European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Genome Biology Unit, Heidelberg, Germany.

Abstract

This editorial summarises the organisation, activities, and scientific content of the 6th European Student Council Symposium (ESCS) organised by the International Society for Computational Biology Student Council (ISCB-SC). The event was held on September 6, 2020, as a satellite event preceding the ISCB's 19th European Conference in Computational Biology. Both events were first planned to be held in-person in Sitges, Spain, but moved virtually as a strategy to face the SARS-CoV2 sanitary crisis. This completely unforeseen situation has posed several challenges that have been successfully addressed thanks to the robust ISCB Student Council community structure and the strong commitment of the organisers. Despite all the obstacles and challenges, we have found that virtuality has several advantages that can continue to be kept to improve in-person meetings in the future and make conferences more inclusive allowing a larger audience to participate.

Keywords: conference; iscb; student council; virtual.

Publication types

Editorial
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

COVID-19*
Computational Biology
Humans
RNA, Viral*
SARS-CoV-2
Students

Substances

RNA, Viral

Grants and funding

The ESCS2020 was partially supported by funds from ISCB-Student Council, a subsidiary of the International Society for Computational Biology, and the generous contribution of ITTM Solutions as sponsor of the event.