International Meeting for PhD students in Botany in Poroszló

Between 22-25 September, we organized an International Meeting for PhD students in Botany in Poroszló, Hungary. This meeting was first initiated by Milan Chytry and Zoltán Botta-Dukát about twenty years ago, and it has a very nice tradition since then. Every second year, PhD students in botany meet somewhere in Central Europe and they share their research plans and results, and they can get advice from senior scientitst in a friendly atmosphere.

After a few years break do to the pandemics, finally this nice event could be organized in person. We were very happy that we could organize this event this year - Zoltán Botta-Dukát, Balázs Deák and Orsolya Valkó, from IEB CER Vácrátót.

There was a huge interest and we were almost 70 participants, from 16 countries :) The scientific program was very dense, but very interesting; the PhD students gave very impressive and high-quality presentations.

The venue of the conference was in Poroszló, in the Tisza-Lake Ecocentrum, which was a wonderful place for having such an event. During the (few) coffee breaks, we could visit the nice indoor and outdoor exhibitions and aquariums, which was a nice and refreshing activity. During the nights, there were two very interesting topical discussions about 'How can we translate the scientific results into practice?' and whether 'Quality or quantity counts more in science?', followed by a lively social program.

On Sunday, Balázs Deák led a half-day long excursion, where we showed the participants the natural beauties of the Hortobágy National Park, the alkaline grasslands and wetlands, loess grasslands, and of course, kurgans.

The event was supported by the Hungarian Ecological Society and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, we are grateful for their support. We are thankful for all the participants for their enthusiasm and active participation in all the events. We are thankful for all the colleagues from IEB who helped us in the organization, especially József Nagy, Attila Lengyel and Miklós Kertész. We are thankful for the Hortobágy National Park Directorate for supporting the field trip.