ECB 2020 and IBS 2020 postponed to May 9-12, 2021

Due to the continued spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19), the Organizing Committee of the Joint ECB2020 and IBS 2020 Congress have taken the decision to postpone this year’s Congress, due to take place from 28 June to 1 July 2020 in Maastricht, The Netherlands.  The ECB-IBS 2020 Congress will be moved to the May 9-12, 2021 and will still be held at the MECC in Maastricht, The Netherlands.

If you have any questions, you can contact the organizing committee at registration.ecb2020@tfigroup.com.

IBS2020 will be held in conjunction with ECB2020 on June 28^th-July 1^st, 2020 in Maastricht, the Netherlands. Due to the misunderstanding of the IBS series at the beginning by the major organizer, the Dutch Biotechnology Association, most speakers were invited from Europe, particularly from the Netherlands. When I found this problem, I redesigned the website homepage (www.ecb2020.com), rewrote the welcome message, and talked to the chair of the organizing committee Prof. Jeff Cole for solutions. We tried to squeeze more than 10 slots for keynote speakers outside Europe, and Jeff has agreed to arrange “short talks” as “invited lectures”, leaving more slots (>50%) for speakers outside Europe. Since the European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB) has contracted the organization of IBS2020/ECB2020 solely to the company TFI Group, and the budget for the two conferences is very tight, all speakers need to cover their costs including registration fee, travels and accommodations.

Both China and Korea had organized the IBS congress with tremendous success with more 2000 participants from all continents, but unfortunately the influence of IBS has been declined continuously since IBS2012 in Daegu, Korea. I took the chair position for the IUPAC Subcommittee on Biotechnology in 2017, and will announce at the closing ceremony of IBS2020 that IBS2022 will be organized by Japan with Prof. Akihiko Kondo and Prof. Haruyuki Atomi as the main organizers. Therefore, I would like very much for Yoon-Mo and Tomohisa to help me promote IBS2020 in Korea and Japan, particularly in Japan, for more scholars and graduates to attend IBS2020 and voice for our Asia so that we can revert the global impact of IBS through IBS2020 next year and IBS2022 later. Although there are some problems with its organization, I believe that IBS2020 will be much better than IBS2018, IBS2016 and IBS2014 due to the influence of European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB) in Europe, and good reputation of the ECB series sponsored by EFB.

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Fengwu Bai, PhD

Conference Information: IBS 2020/ECB 2020 (www.ecb2020.com) 

Chair, IUPAC Subcommittee on Biotechnology (www.iupac.org)

Editor, Biotechnology Advances (Elsevier, IF 12.831)

University Distinguished Professor

Shanghai Jiao Tong University

School of Life Science and Biotechnology

800 Dongchuan Rd., Shanghai 200240, China

Tel: 86-21-3420 8028; Fax: 86-21-3420 5709

Email: fwbai@sjtu.edu.cn