MEICOM Inaugural Meeting (AT3.1 & AT5.1) 9th July 2018, Birmingham
The MEICOM Inaugural Meeting was held on 9th July 2018 at the IET Birmingham, Austin Court. This was a highly successful first meeting, attended by all partners, their recruited ESRs and the MEICOM associated partners. An introduction to the individual RTPs was given by each RTP leader and each ESR gave a presentation on their background, their research aims and outputs for the project. The day concluded with an introduction to management, and the election of the ESR Representatives Committee (ERC) and a discussion with the External Advisory Board (EAB).
This was followed on the 10th July by an ESR workshop on Plant Meiotic Recombination (Technical theory and application (AT3.1) The Workshop focused on the current state of the art chromosome organization in crop species and the challenges confronting plant breeding and consisted of talks provided by the RTP leaders and external invited speakers.
On the 11th July, MEICOM project Coordinator Dr Eugenio Sanchez Moran hosted an Outreach & Event Planning day (AT5.1 Discussion and Planning Outreach Events) for the ESRs which included a representative from the ThinkTank and recently graduated PhDs with outstanding outreach experience (Marina Martinez [COMREC-ITN] & Chris Morgan [UoB graduate]). The day concluded with a tour of the ThinkTank in Birmingham where our first outreach event, Meet the Scientist, will be held on Thursday 21st February 2019.
The agenda for our Inaugural Meeting and Workshops can be viewed here
View the PowerPoint presentation for our Outreach & Event Planning day
Planned meetings for 2019
Bioinformatics Workshop (AT3.2) 11th, 12th 13th February 2019, Wageningen
The ESRs will attend a three-day intensive workshop on Bioinformatics (AT3.2) hosted by Sander Peters and Dick De Ridder of partner WUR in Wageningen on the 11th, 12th and 13th February 2019.
Topics to be covered are data resources such as NCBI dbs, Ensembl, etc. and basic tools (e.g. BLAST, InterPro, Go annotation, Staden, Emboss, Primer3). Haplotyping and ChIP-seq analysis. The outcome of which will be that all ESRs will have “hands-on” experience of bioinformatics analysis.
Meet the Scientist Outreach Event (AT5.3) ThinkTank Museum 21st February 2019, Birmingham
Our first ESR led outreach event takes place at the ThinkTank Museum (AT5.3) and will focus on “Crops for our future”. The day will feature hands-on interactive plant science-based activities for school children, parents and the general public. The outcome of which will raise awareness of Food Security by the general public.
1st Annual MEICOM Project Meeting (incorporating AT3.3/AT5.2) 17th – 19th June 2019, Madrid
The 1st Annual MEICOM Project Meeting, hosted by Dr Monica Pradillo of partner UCM will be held in Escorial, Madrid. This will involve discussion sessions in which the ESRs will present progress updates to their cohort and the group. Feedback will be provided in both verbal and written form from the workpackage leaders and scientific committee. The day will conclude with a management meeting, feedback from ERC and EAC and a Plenary Lecture by an invited scientist.
Workshop on Advances in Meiotic Recombination (AT3.3) 18th June, Madrid
Following on from the 1st Annual Project Meeting, a workshop on Advances in Meiotic Recombination (AT3.3) will be held for the ESRs focusing on current state-of-the-art advances in meiotic recombination in crops, plants and other organisms. The outcome will be all ESRs will acquire a clear understanding of the new advances in the field of meiotic recombination to be able to adapt them into their work plan for their research.
Presentation Skills Workshop (AT5.2), 19th June, Madrid
The final ESR workshop held in Madrid will be on Presentation Skills (AT5.2), led by Dr Eugenio Sanchez Moran of MEICOM coordinators UoB. ESRs will have instruction on the preparation and delivery of verbal presentations followed by a feedback session. ESRs will receive general and personalized feedback on how to improve their presentation skills.