How to make the most out of attending our conference

Welcome aboard, delegates! We’re thrilled to have you join us at the 7th International Marine Conservation Congress (IMCC7.) IMCC is a fantastic meeting that has the potential to offer many professional benefits to our delegates, but it also is a large meeting and one that runs differently from other conferences that you may have attended. We hope that this guide helps you to make the most out of attending IMCC.

What is IMCC, and how is it different from many other conferences?

IMCC is the largest interdisciplinary ocean conservation meeting in the world. Our motto is “making marine science matter,” and our goal is to bring together many key stakeholder groups who you won’t find at typical academic conferences. Our meeting attendees typically include not only academic scientists, but environmental advocates, educators, practitioners, government officials, representatives from industry, artists, and concerned citizens. It is run by the Marine Program of the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB-Marine), a non-profit professional scientific society.

We’ve found that discussions about ocean issues that affect us all are more relevant, more effective, and more interesting when everyone has a seat at the table! This professionally diverse audience does mean, however, that you can’t assume that everyone in your audience knows technical details and specific technical terminology associated with your area of expertise. You should also consider that we have delegates from all over the world, so even other experts in your field might not be familiar with specific details of local species, study sites, or conservation threats. Accordingly, we encourage you to plan your talks, especially the introduction sections, thoughtfully with this context in mind.

How to read the schedule
The most effective way for you to maximize the benefits you get from IMCC is to thoroughly examine the schedule in advance to make sure that you don’t miss anything. It can be very frustrating to learn that there was a session directly related to your career goals or area of interest, but you missed it because you didn’t see it on the schedule!

The schedule is large and complicated, and can feel overwhelming to first-time attendees. This section should help clarify key details for you, and we are happy to answer any questions that you have!

Pre-meeting workshops and focus groups
IMCC has 2 days (October 13 and 14th) of optional pre-meeting workshops and focus groups, which you must sign up for via your online profile. These are either designed to help your professional development by teaching you a skill, or bring together experts to discuss an issue of concern. Some have extra fees associated with them, some are free with registration.

Main meeting: Plenaries and daytime sessions
If you are not attending a pre-meeting workshop, the first event associated with the main conference is the welcome event the evening of October 14th. This is included with your registration, but you may purchase extra tickets for friends or family who are traveling with you but not otherwise attending IMCC.

During the main meeting (October 15th-18th), all days will follow the same general schedule.

All mornings open with everyone gathering together for announcements and watching a plenary address from one of our amazing plenary speakers. This takes place from 8-9:30 a.m.

Then we will have a 30 minute coffee/tea break, which is a great time for networking, catching up with friends and colleagues or making new friends.

Next, we have 3 time slots of parallel sessions. Parallel sessions mean that there are multiple different sets of talks taking place in different rooms in the Convention Center, and you can choose which session you wish to attend. These talks include symposia (delegate-organized groups of talks on specific topics,) general sessions (conference-organized groups of talks on more general topics,) and speed talks (3 minute talks on a wide variety of topics usually highlighting one preliminary result). Some parallel session time slots also include an optional workshop or focus group, which do not have an extra fee associated with them.

Our three timeslots for parallel sessions are morning (10:00 a.m.-12:00 noon,) early afternoon (1:30 P.M. to 3:00 P.M.,) and late afternoon (3:30 P.M. to 5:30 P.M.). Parallel sessions should be tightly synchronized so that a new talk starts at the same time in different rooms. This means that if you want to attend a 10:00 a.m. talk in one room and a 10:15 talk in a different room, this should be possible, we just ask that you please try to sit near the end of an aisle and near a door to minimize disruption when you move between rooms.

Please note that we break for lunch from 12:00 noon to 1:30 p.m. Lunch is available for purchase in the Convention Centre, and that will be your quickest option. If you want to explore Cape Town’s local restaurants over lunch, this is an option, but we cannot guarantee that you’d be able to leave the Convention Centre, eat lunch, and return without missing some talks, so please plan any off-site lunch trips carefully around talks that you want to make sure you don’t miss!

Main meeting: Evening activities
We have a series of early evening 6:00 – 7:00 P.M. activities each day. This will be the time slot where poster sessions occur on October 15 and 16th. We have a plenary session during this time on October 17th. And on October 18th, this is when we will have our SCB Members Meeting and closing announcements before the closing gala.

The SCB Members meeting is your chance to meet all the SCB-Marine leaders, and learn about opportunities for you to get involved with the society. It’s also your chance to meet leadership and ask us questions. We encourage you to attend.

There are also optional evening activities (7:30 p.m. to- late) which come with an extra cost. These include the student social at the nearby Two Oceans Aquarium, a sustainable seafood feast from a local celebrity chef (SOLD OUT), movie night featuring ocean conservation documentaries made by or featuring IMCC delegates, and a storytelling event.

The final event is our closing Gala on October 18th, which has an extra ticket and cost associated with it.

Post-meeting field trips
We have also organized some optional field trips for you to explore South Africa’s beautiful coastline with other IMCC delegates. These take place on October 19th, the morning after the closing gala. These have an extra ticket and associated cost.

We can also recommend some trusted tour operators in the region if you want to explore on your own.

Other things to know about IMCC

1.  IMCC has a code of conduct, which you all agreed to upon registration. Please review it again to help make sure that you, and everyone around you, have a safe and meaningful conference experience. The guidelines also include how to report an incident to our safety officer.
2. Network. One of the biggest benefits of an international conference is that you get to meet many people in your field from all over the world whom you might not otherwise get to meet. Please take full advantage of this! If you enjoyed someone’s presentation, tell them so. If you want to ask about someone’s methodology or suggest a future collaboration, don’t hesitate to approach them. Don’t be afraid to approach senior scientists or conservationists, all of us were once early career and remember what it was like, and they’re attending this conference to meet people just as you are. Though it may appear old fashioned, many attendees recommend bringing business cards containing your name, contact info, and area of expertise to exchange.
3. Be sure to download the conference app, and be sure to check your e-mail regularly during the meeting. The conference app contains a personalizable schedule, and allows you to message other delegates. Conference organizers will share important announcements through the app and via the email address associated with your IMCC profile.
4. Prepare an “elevator speech,” a 30 second summary of who you are, what you do, and what you’re asking from people who you meet at the meeting. You may have limited time to speak with some particularly busy individuals, and practicing delivering a concise summary will help facilitate a successful interaction.
5. Social media. A great way to keep in touch with people both during and after the meeting is social media. Though Twitter has dramatically declined in popularity and utility, many IMCC7 delegates use Instagram, LinkedIn, and BlueSky, and SCB-Marine has a Facebook group that you can request to join. Please use #IMCC7 in all relevant posts to make sure others can find them. You can also follow SCB-Marine and IMCC on social media but please be aware that these accounts are not closely monitored during the meeting and tweeting at us is not an effective way to reach leadership during the meeting

FURTHER READING on making the most of conferences:

https://heysciencesam.medium.com/10-tips-for-easier-networking-at-scientific-conferences-bde2a8ccc72a

https://crosstalk.cell.com/blog/an-introverts-guide-to-networking-at-conferences

https://thenode.biologists.com/scientific-conferences-networking-for-introverts/careers/

https://www.scientifica.uk.com/neurowire/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-a-scientific-conference

https://www.science.org/content/article/how-get-most-out-attending-conferences

How To Get The Most Out Of A Scientific Conference