Dr Anke Carius
Society secretary
Department of Plant Physiology
Umeå University
901 87 Umeå
Sweden
Dear members and conference participants!
We tried everything to make this event happen as planned, but unfortunately, business travel to Norway is still not possible due to border restrictions and it is unclear if quarantine free travel will be possible in August. In addition, many of our members from Finland are prohibited by their employers to travel. Since the situation is too unpredictable and we must give all our members the opportunity to attend our events, we have decided to move the SPPS conference to 2022.
More information will be available soon. If you have registered already you will recieve an email on how to proceed.
We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause you and hope to see you on Svalbard 2022!
For this conference ca. 130 spots are available. We have currently not opened for registration now, but if you are sure that you want to participate, make sure to become an SPPS member as we will send out the link for registration via the newsletter first. Also make sure to follow us on Twitter to always get updates on program and organization! If Covid-19 makes it impossible for the conference to be held at that date, it will either be moved by one year or held online.
Registration is closed now.
To secure the maximum probability to be able to have this event physically on Svalbard, the council decided to move the dates for registration to May 10th. Registration will only be open until May 30th, there is no option to extend this deadline, so if you plan to participate, register at your earliest convenience!
Together with your registration for the conference, you can book accommodation, this is not obligatory! To avoid unnecessary cancellation cost for both SPPS and Universities, the SPPS council will reconsider holding the event physically on Svalbard on May 31st, according to the rules and prerequisites dictated by the Covid-19 pandemic. After this decision, on June 1st, invoices will be sent out to you or your employer. There will only be a 10 days payment period, so please prepare your administrator to handle the payment as quickly as possible. Payment with credit card will also be possible. If your registration is not fully paid for by June 11th, you will automatically be unregistered, and won't be able to attend the conference.
Before you proceed and register for the conference, please be aware of the following:
- It is still unclear if we will be able to hold the event. The border to Norway is still closed as of today. Information about this can be found here: Travel to Norway, the Government's website.
- SPPS does not encourage you to book your trip before it is more likely that we can hold the conference. Please buy refundable tickets in case something happens that influences whether you can travel. SPPS will not cover any cost for travel if the conference must be cancelled or postponed. Please be aware that the cost for the hotel rooms is part of the travel cost and can not be refunded in case you personally cannot travel to the conference due to specific restrictions towards your country of residence, vaccination status or other reasons. Check with your employer what rules apply for booking travel for your institution.
- Hotel rooms are travel costs and are non-refundably booked after June 22nd. Until then, you can cancel the whole booking without any cost. Until July 10th, 20% of the full booking cost can be refunded.
Update your membership or become a member
As it is SPPS' tradition, we will be giving out our prestigeous SPPS Prizes to our awardees on the SPPS conference. All prize winners will be invited to the conference. To win one of the SPPS Prizes, the candidate has to be nominated by an SPPS member and also has to be a member themselves. So make sure, your membership is up to date! Nominations for SPPS prizes have to be sent in by 20th of January 2021 at the latest.
Alle prize winners have been chosen and will be announced on social media during the coming days!
Holding a conference at such a remote location means that there will be very few locals attending. That is why you will be able to book your accommodation during the registration for the conference. We are closely working together with the Radisson Blu Polar Hotel and Funken Lodge. Rooms are available at a range of prices starting from 1200 NOK per night.
Right now, there are two routes to Svalbard available: Flight via Oslo with SAS or Norwegian (Tuesday 24, back Friday 27th or Sunday 29th) and Flight from Tromsø with SAS (only Tuesday 24th and Sunday 29th).
Generally, it is complicated to travel to Svalbard and long transition times are to be expected.
From Umeå, a possible route is by night train to Narvik, a bus to Tromsø and a short flight. This might be the most environmentally friendly option. The alternative is to change flights in Stockholm and Oslo and an overnight stay in Oslo. Please let me know if you have problems to find appropriate travel to the conference.
SPPS is providing travel grants for PhD students for 100.000 swedish kronor. To be able to help many students with their travel and as Svalbard is relatively expensive to get to, it was decided to provide 20 stipends worth 5000 SEK each. Please use the appropriate form to apply.
The programme for this years conference is stuffed with interesting topics, charismatic speakers and exiting excursions and food.
Holding a conference at a spectacular location is not cheap but with the support of SPPS funds, we can offer a conference fee as low as 2000 NOK (Norwegian Kronor) for our members. The registration for non members will be 4000 NOK.