MoFA Conference 2021

The MoFA Conference 2021 took place in Vienna on the 23rd of September. The decision to organize this conference as a hybrid meeting (physically and online) was by no means an easy one for us. The arguments for and against were strong because planning was uncertain due to unpredictable developments of the Covid19 pandemic and the efforts necessary were not easy to assess.

In the end, we experienced a small but fine conference with about 40 participants and 11 presentations. The people physically present enjoyed being there, because in the past year we had built up a noticeable deficit in scientific and social meetings. On the other side, the virtual participants encouraged us, and we felt the scientific participation and personal sympathy and were encouraged to stick to this format: Those who can come personally are happy about it, those who can’t, still have the chance to be there online!

Purely “physical” was the excursion on Schneeberg mountain on the 2nd day. We experienced a violent storm of up to 100 km/h, with remarkable light and weather conditions, and the 11 participants enjoyed the autumnal mountains and turned their attention to the alpine snail fauna. We will report on this in ARIANTA.

We heartily congratulate the winners of the student awards, Hannah Schubert, Stephan Schulreich and Nikolaus Helmer, and thank everyone who participated. We are convinced that in the end we all were winners!