Conference Organisation
Amelia Philpott
Sarah Pannell
Who are we? Why are we giving this talk?
3rd year Biochemistry DPhil students
(surely we don't have time to organise a conference?)
Chemistry and Biochemistry PG
Seminars at Sussex started
06/07, expanded 07/08.
In Spring 08 started forming links with other local
universities – Seminar Exchange.
Interest from other universities increased, so decided
to bring everyone together in a symposium day.
General Considerations
Audience
Purpose
Location
Time
Bioscience Post Graduate Symposium
• Aimed at Bioscience PGs in the South
East of England
• To share research, gain confidence in
presenting work to a wide audience,
network with people from different
universities and speak to company reps
about their products.
• At Sussex University, 15th December 2008
BPGS08 Checklist
 Budget – raise money
 Decide date and book venue
 Publicity
 Presenters (oral & poster)
 Creating contacts
 Catering
 Registration
 Encouraging attendance
 Arranging day programme
 Prizes
Budget
How much money have you got?
How many people are attending?
Are you feeding them?
– Lunch from UoS catering service costs £5.25/person.
– 100 delegates x £5.25 = £525! And that's without any
coffee/biscuits.
What other expenses might you have?
•
•
Travel expenses for speakers?
Printing of posters/flyers/programme
Stick rigidly to costings – you can’t spend
what you don’t have.
Budget
Where can you get funding from?
• Companies
–
Will usually want something in return  can you offer them anything?
•
Societies
•
Department
•
University
Accounts department (in Sussex House) can
set up account codes to pay in to/take from.
Publicity
Targeting publicity is so important
• Posters and flyers
• E-mail
– Mass e-mails to students
– Targeted e-mails to Heads of Department and Directors of
Graduate Studies at other universities
• Website (www.sussex.ac.uk/biochemistry/bpgs08)
• Word of mouth from company reps and
presenting authors
Issues we’ve encountered
•
•
•
•
•
Need to start with a good proposal
Problems with venue
Quotes from suppliers e.g. printers
Organising catering – accurate numbers etc.
Communication with other universities –
important to create reliable contacts
• Communication with sponsors (£!)
• Publications and branding
Negatives of the whole experience
• Time consuming
– Need to be disciplined about time spent
• Will be stressful and exhausting on the
day
• Always something you won’t have thought
of
– Working as a team helps with this.
Positives of the whole experience
• Encouragement from sponsors – if you
don’t ask you don’t get – be ambitious!
• Enjoyable experience (overall)
• Looks amazing on your CV
• Forces you to develop excellent
organisational and teamwork skills
Overall
• Good experience
• Proved it’s possible but needed good
foundations
Sign up to attend!
www.sussex.ac.uk/biochemistry/bpgs08