An overview of the 3rd Network/1st virtual UV4Plants Training school and Conference by two newcomers in the UV4Plants community.
Figure 1: Photo from a high altitude location in the Tatra mountains in Slovakia. Research by Lenka Procházková focusses on the local algal snow blooms, which occur notwithstanding exposure to elevated UV doses. Due to Covid-19, opportunities to meet up, and travel have been severely restricted. As a result, the UV4Plants training school and conference were organized online. The challenge of organising an online conference was accepted by Prof Wolfgang Bilger and Dr Frauke Pescheck with the technical support of the Master’s student Carina Lietz and Christiana Anagnostou, all of them from the University of Kiel, Germany. What was the outcome of undertaking this challenging task? Simply amazing! Using the Zoom and Mattermost platforms, the gap was reduced just to physical distance, since the floor was perfectly set for open, interesting and fruitful discussions, for meeting old colleagues and for finding new ones. The meeting was preceded by a successful Virtual Training School. The group of 25 participants comprised PhD students and early post-doctoral researchers from different parts of the world. Participants had a shared interest in getting a better insight into the basics of the exciting world of UV radiation and photosynthetic organisms. Each lecture was followed by facultative…
