Hello ##firstname##,

On behalf of myself and EBSA Council, thank you for supporting our 2026 event in Bruges. We had around 350 registrants for the conference and some 170 at our pre-conference training courses – and it is worth saying that, unlike Maastricht, we ran this year without a co-located side event. Those were EBSA delegates, all of them there for the conference itself, and I think that showed in the quality of the time people spent with you rather than simply the volume of bodies passing the stand.

Bruges served us well. The Bruges Meeting & Convention Centre gave us the space and comfort we were after, the exhibition area sat where the traffic was, and the conference dinner in the Provincial Palace on the Market Square was, by common consent, one of the better evenings we have had. Feedback from our members has been very positive. As ever, this simply does not happen without our sponsors and exhibitors, so whether Bruges was your first EBSA or one of many – thank you.

As always, I would welcome any input you have on the event and its organisation, good or bad, if we did not already get the chance to talk in Bruges.

Now, Padova. As announced at Bruges, EBSA 2027 will take place from 11th – 14th May (pre-conference courses 11th – 12th, conference 13th – 14th) in Padova, Italy, under the theme "The Biosafety Renaissance". Padova is one of the great university cities of Europe – Galileo taught there, and the world's oldest academic botanical garden is a short walk from the centre – and there is real appetite among our members for it. I expect it to be a very well-attended week, assisted in no small part by proximity to Venice (just ~30 minutes by direct train) and simple logistics (there are many low cost flights to Venice Marco Polo Airport, which has direct transport links to Padova). Our venue, the main ‘Fiera’ Padova Congress Centre, further offers the full modern conference experience you have come to expect from EBSA over the last few years.

The formal conference launch is expected in December, but there is no need to wait. If you want to be in Padova, fill out our online form or contact Jurgen Plyson (jurgen@2mpact.be) now and he will secure your place.

I hope to see you there.

Regards,

Pat Casey
EBSA President 2025 - 2027