This week, the Department of Biological & Environmental Sciences at Helsinki University (where I am ungainfully currently employed) is having its annual¹ Spring Symposium. We’ve got talks ranging from the effects of eutrophication in stickleback behaviour, to methods for separating niche and neutral dynamics from sampled community data , to Resinicolous species of Chaenothecopsis – stuck in resin ²

It’s a three day event, with each day initiated by an invited external plenary speaker, who tends to be a relatively youthful expert in their field³. Following the plenary, the day is divided into 3 or more sessions where all the PhD students in the department are given the chance to give a 20 minute presentation (15 + 5 for questions please), with a relatively flexible format – i.e., it may be about their hopes, dreams and aspirations if they’re a new student, or about their frustration, flagellation and failed experiments if they’re closer to completion. The invited experts (evaluators) give feedback following the talks and all attendees are encouraged to ask questions, and fill out feedback forms giving constructive advice on aspects ranging from timing and body language, to scientific content. The best presentation, chosen by the evaluators, receives Olli’s prize at a ceremony after the whole scientific part is wrapped up. The prize is largely composed of funds to take the winning presentation to an international conference of the winner’s choice. The winner also adds their name to an illustrious list in the department, which is also starting to read like a list of current faculty members…

I’m glad to say, very few talks fall into the latter of the format categories above. I particularly enjoyed attending the Symposium the first couple of years I was working as a postdoc in the department. It was an interesting and stimulating way to find out what the different research groups were working on in the department, which otherwise suffered from a somewhat unhealthy case of verbal constipation.

I’ve also been consistently impressed with the presentation skills of students here, who are often better at describing an engaging story around their study system and results, than many more established academics. The majority of these students are not even native English speakers and they put many of my linguistic countrymen to shame, in terms of both clarity and vocabulary.

I would honestly encourage this sort of meeting at all Departments, or across a Faculty if you have a small department, in all Universities. It’s a fantastic break from the daily grind, it cuts down on international travel expenses and can generate exciting new collaborative opportunities. It gives students the possibility to practice presenting in a more familiar environment, and some professors the chance to see how entertaining presentations can actually be!

I half thought about live blogging from the meeting, but quickly realised that if I was in a symposium session sitting close to some clown tippy-tapping away at their laptop keyboard all the way through talks, I would lose focus and patience very quickly. So, this brief introduction will have to do I’m afraid. If you’re around Infokeskus in Viikki tomorrow, from 10 o’clock onwards, drop in and see for yourself how good the whole thing is.

Constant network access make Hulk maaaaaad!

¹ Dear users of the word “yearly”. Please stop it.

² I have absolutely no idea.

³ This year, in order of presentation, they are Drs. Owen Lewis (empirical foodweb ecology), Staffan Bensch (evolution and ecology of avian malaria parasites) and Jane Reid (mate choice and quantitative genetics). I used to play football with Jane in the good old days when we were doing our PhDs at Glasgow Uni. I wonder if she’d be up for playing a game in the snow and sub-zero temperatures here. Actually, the weather’s better than some of the games we played in Glasgow…