Virtual Excursions Special Session at IAVS 2023

The IAVS Young Scientists Working Group are calling for submissions for the Virtual Excursions (VE) special session at IAVS 2023.

Symposium delegates will be able to view VE videos any time during the conference on the IAVS website, in a special room at Opal Cove dedicated for the purpose. Here you will be able to make appointments and meet other conference delegates interested in your research and study sites. You can participate in VE by submitting a video even if you are not lucky enough to be attending the symposium! The deadline for abstract submissions has been extended to 30 June 2023.

Virtual excursions are the opportunity to share with delegates your research and experiences in a short (up to 10-minute) video, affording you a wonderful opportunity to raise awareness of your work, and increase your online research profile. The video should be related to your ongoing research in vegetation science, and preferably filmed in a field or lab environment.

If your project is not an experiment, highlighting findings or methods with real-world examples is quite acceptable (e.g. showing comparisons of the vegetation at different sites). The format is flexible – authors are granted the freedom to be creative and depict their research in the way they prefer. For instance, a VE video can start with a brief introduction by the author about themselves and their research interests, followed by the specific research questions in their current project, and key methods for answering them. If filmed in the field or lab, it can be like the author is showing a visitor around their study site or work bench. The VE format can be quite different to a formal research talk (i.e. a 15-min powerpoint presentation consisting of introduction, methods, results and discussion, for instance).

If you are interested in participating in the virtual excursion initiative, please apply here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSePjd5LBSsB1CnJ_c-M2ryqH0xh_kKzt0QsJNyZUmkTWTvPvw/viewform?usp=sf_link, providing a short description of what the video is going to show (max. 3000 characters including spaces) and up to 3 pictures.

Once your application has been reviewed, you will receive notification on the acceptance of your proposal, and information on how to upload your video. Please, be aware of the copyright law responsibilities if you intend to have music or images. IAVS cannot take responsibility for sharing unlicensed content online.

This initiative is being managed by the IAVS Young Scientists Working Group. If you have any questions, please contact iavs.yssteeringcommittee@gmail.com. All applications are welcome, and we want to especially encourage the participation of young scientists and under-represented groups.

Mick Wakefield
Local Organising Committee, IAVS 2023