IBioIC's 6th Annual Conference
Although it seems a lifetime ago and a world away, it has only been three months since IBioIC’s 6th Annual Conference took place on 5th and 6th February.
Demonstrating the ever-growing popularity of the conference, tickets sold out in January with 496 delegates registered before the official registration deadline.
Cupcakes at the launch of Keit Spectrometers new IRmadillo spectrometer.
Networking was a main attraction for delegates again this year. There were 295 meeting requests through our 1-2-1 partnering software and a further 1600+ chats, meetings, and introductions took place via the conference app.
As with previous years, the exhibition space was sold out early and hosted 32 exhibitors from industry, academia, government agencies and NGOs. The highlights of the exhibition included the launch of Keit Spectrometers New IRmadillo with Diamond ATR Probe, with cupcakes for delegates attending the launch announcement.
The conference was also the setting for the official launch of Zero Waste Scotland’s ‘Bioeconomy Opportunities For Fish By-Products And Mortalities’ call, and the announcement from the Rural Innovation Support Service (RISS) that Sugar beet to return to Scotland after 50 years – this time for climate change mitigation.
Our Fringe event programme was expanded for this year; 275 delegates attended 11 events across the 4th, 5th and 6th February which expanded on topics covered in the main programme, took some deep dives into associated subjects, and covered areas of interest not captured in the main conference programme.
Vivienne Parry, OBE, Colin Webster, and David Newman on the panel at the opening plenary session.
Plenary sessions focused on policy and public engagement. The opening plenary on Day 1 saw Vivienne Parry, OBE, Colin Webster of the Ellen McArthur Foundation and BBIA’s CEO David Newman discuss how the biotechnology sector presents itself, how we present the science and the benefits offered by IB, and how vital the incorporation of IB into sustainable and circular economy policies are.
Public engagement stayed front and centre throughout the subsequent plenary sessions with Julie Moulsdale of the PR agency Perceptive Communicators demonstrating examples of good publicity and Jon Entine of the Genetic Literacy Project closing the conference with a discussion focused on highlighting some of the popular misconceptions around scientific innovations and challenging the community to revise their approach to communication.
The session tracks were well received, as usual, with an obvious standout this year being the Fashion and the Circular Economy session on Day 2. This was a difficult session to pull together for the very practical reason that the fashion industry is new to IB solutions and contacts between the biotechnology community and the fashion industry are largely new. The session was nevertheless overwhelmingly well received and demonstrated a clear appetite both on the part of the fashion industry to explore novel solutions to the sustainability question, and on the part of the IB community to take on new challenges and explore new opportunities to contribute to sustainability goals.
The objectives of the conference were to provide meaningful networking opportunities for attendees, to demonstrate thought leadership in the IB sector and to grow the reputation of the conference internationally and showcase IB in the UK. Thanks to the active engagement of our speakers, exhibitors, sponsors and delegates, as well as everyone who supported us, the conference met and exceeded those objectives and we’re looking forward to being able to build on the momentum gathered once the current emergency is over.
IBioIC’s Annual Conference will be back in 2021!