What is so special about this workshop?

Why give up a week of your valuable time to join us in Chile? There are several reasons that we can think of:

Workshop session
Andina IV, Argentina

 

  • The novel and important topic that we rarely discuss: Re-defining the role of ecologists and their responsibilities toward society. 
  • Inter-disciplinary dialogue: the rare opportunity to tackle issues outside our narrow interest silos.
  • The relaxed environment we create for discussion, where everyone’s views are valued – the young and the experienced, a balance of genders and cultures.
  • The location: the Araucania area of Chile in summer, within the national park where they filmed Walking With Dinosaurs, surrounded by monkey-puzzle trees, in the lee of Llaima volcano and with lava fields almost to the doorstep…….
  • No dark, stuffy lecture rooms or PowerPoint!
  • Free-range workshopping (i.e. walking) every afternoon!
  • The very reasonable price.
  • It is free for early-career researchers, including food and accommodation!!!!!

Our approach

Rather than take a traditional conference format and then try to inject discussion into it – which never succeeds – we design our workshops in completely the opposite direction.  The entire event will be built around sessions and activities designed to stimulate discourse and to enhance the interactions.  And we throw away all the things about conferences that deter open discussion.  This will be a truly unique event in an amazing location in Chile!  An opportunity to: exchange ideas; to pull apart contentious issues; to set challenges and goals for our discipline; to develop more effective collaborations within the international community; to build greater camaraderie among researchers; and to help our emerging researchers to more rapidly take leading roles.

This workshop, by deliberately stimulating discussion among a small group of scientists (a maximum of just 30 people), will offer you opportunities that traditional conferences and workshops have never given you!  You will have the time and the opportunity to think, to discuss, to challenge one another (in a good-spirited way), and together to reach conclusions about the best ways forward.  You will do this with some of the world’s top ecologists and, critically, with a strong contingent of our best young scientists.  You will participate (every attendee will give given a specific role), often in very unusual ways.  You will work hard but you will have a great amount of fun!  Everyone will end up as a co-author on at least one scientific paper.  This will be like no other ecology workshop that you have ever attended!

Ana et al sm
Andina III, southern Alberta