Copenhagen Congress and Event Awards are given annually by the City of Copenhagen and Wonderful Copenhagen, the city's tourism agency. The awards are given to conferences that have made a difference in their field, and given prestige to the city as a conference destination. The awards were presented at the Copenhagen Town Hall on Tuesday evening.
According to the jury, the ASC demonstrated a high level of imagination, engagement, and originality, and the conference's social arrangements highlighted the city's diversity as a conference destination in the best possible way.
"Our ASC in Copenhagen was a great performance from an enthusiastic and motivated team of colleagues, many of whom were working at our conference for the first time. It was a very rewarding experience", stated Adi Kellermann, the Head of Science at the ICES Secretariat.
"We are proud of the fact that the conference gathered together many students and scientists early in their career, and that during the week, excellent research was presented in a variety of disciplines dealing with marine ecosystems, the environment, and our sustainable use of the oceans. Hosting the ASC in our home town was a very memorable event", Kellerman continued, pointing out that the ICES Secretariat has proudly been located in Copenhagen since the inception of the organization in 1902.
734 participants attended the ASC in DGI Byen, in central Copenhagen in September last year. The programme consisted of 19 scientific Theme Sessions, three plenary lectures, multiple open sessions, events for early career scientists, as well as several social events. Students from universities in Denmark and Sweden were also invited to participate in a special one day programme. A novel addition to the event was a game played via social media, #CaptureICES2015. The game encouraged participants to dive into the playful dimension of science by completing challenges on Twitter.
The ICES ASC takes place in a different ICES member country every September. This year, the conference will be in Riga, Latvia, 19-23 September. The Call for papers is ongoing and the deadline for submissions is 30 April.
