Dear colleagues in the mushroom industry; it is time to register for the ISMS congress.
The next ISMS congress will be held from 14 till 17 September 2021. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic this time it will be an online event, although we would have preferred to make it a live event. However, as the statutes of ISMS demand that a congress is held every 3 to 5 years with the last one being in Amsterdam in 2016, a congress needed to be planned in 2021. Hence, an online version of the congress.
Even though we think that nothing beats meeting people in person, an online congress does have its advantages. It is a lot cheaper to participate in an online congress. The organisation has strived to keep the costs of participating as low as possible so that as many people as possible can attend. Costs for non-ISMS members are 100 Australian dollars (a little less than 74 USD / 63 Euro’s). Being a ISMS member, you can participate for about 37 USD/32. For the bargain hunters among us, becoming an ISMS member on a personal title is free of charge.
As ISMS has members all over the globe, it was a challenge to find the proper time of day, which would allow everyone to attend. The ISMS congress starts every day at 12.00 UTC, which is 20.00 hrs in Beijing, 22.00 in Sydney, 05.00 AM in San Francisco and 08.00 AM in New York. Our apologies to the people living on the west coast of the US for having to get up that early to participate. Each session will last for 2.5 hours.
Also this time we can offer an interesting program containing 63 oral presentations and 68 posters. These are divided according to topic in the usual categories. As it is impossible to cram all these presentations and posters, in 4 sessions of 2.5 hours, we chose 9 oral presentations which obtained high scores from the reviewers for live presentations. Each session begins with at least one keynote lecture, followed by the live presentations. All other oral presentations can be viewed a recorded presentations of 10-12 minutes at your own convenience. Also posters are available online for registered participants. So, if you don’t feel like rising that early or stay up that late, all presentations are available online to registered participants. Personally, I quite liked the quality of the content of this year’s ISMS congress.
Finally, to keep the costs as low as possible, we are looking for companies that are willing to act as sponsors. There is a special page at the congress website on which sponsors can publish their messages at very agreeable prices. Platinum sponsorship (2000 Euro) has a limited availability (only 7). For Gold (1000 Euro), Silver (750 Euro) or Bronze (500 Euro) sponsorships there is no limit set. For those companies that are interested to learn what options of communication with the audience a sponsorship will bring, please contact ISMS President Greg Seymour at president@isms.biz.
Johan Baars, treasurer ISMS
In the picture: mushroom scientists Johan Baars and Helen Grogan having fun at the 2016 ISMS congress in Amsterdam. Photo: Roel Dreve
