Welcome to EAS 2021 !

 

News

• 2021-Jun-15: Added the social events and e-Poster pages. Updated the programme timetable.
• 2021-Jun-2: EAS 2021 has over 2000 participants, and the number is still growing!
  Updated the programme timetable and the plenary speakers page.
• 2021-May-21: Added interactive programme link.
• 2021-May-20: Updated page of plenary speakers. Added sponsors & exhibitors page.
▸ More News
2021-Apr-26: Added press link.
2021-Apr-17: Acceptance letters were sent! Check your mailbox! The EAS2021 program will include more more than 900 oral presentations and over 1000 e-posters! SS20 session (Technology Advancements for use in Astronomical Observatories) cancelled.
2021-Apr-12: Updated FAQ for volunteering.
2021-Mar-18: Added Exhibition & Sponsoring Kit and ESO Reflex Helpdesk pages.
2021-Mar-4: Abstract submission is now closed! It is a tremendous success with over 2200 abstracts submitted! The session SOCs will start to look into the abstracts. Stay tuned! Acceptance is forseen by mid-April. Fee waiver requests and volunteering are also closed.
2021-Mar-4: Added page for plenary speakers.
2021-Mar-2: Updated contact details and added FAQ for volunteering.
2021-Feb-17: Corrected SS33 lunch session in session timeline.
2021-Feb-16: Added detailed session timeline.
2021-Feb-5: Correction of programme schedule (S1, SS30, SS33).
2021-Jan-28: Added link to application for registration fee waivers. Reminder: deadline March 2.
2021-Jan-18: Opening of registration and abstract submission! Addition of volunteer and code of conduct pages. An initial fee waivers page was added; stay tuned for more information.
2020-Dec-18: EAS2021 will be virtual. Posted list of symposia, special sessions, and lunch sessions.
2020-Oct-6: Call closed, 66 proposals received; Added SOC.
2020-Jul-21: Website made public; call for sessions released.
2020-Jun-29: Initial website on-line.

Statement on EAS 2021 fees

Some EAS members and EAS meeting attendees have asked why a conference fee has to be charged for our Annual Meeting when it is a virtual meeting. The EAS Council and Annual Meeting Board have discussed this issue comprehensively before agreeing on the current fee structure for the virtual EAS 2021 meeting.

The organisation of a 1500+ participant meeting cannot be compared with a smaller online meeting for which an institutional zoom subscription is enough. As you may know the AAS has also moved its last two meetings to a virtual format, and has had very much the same discussion. Although details differ between the two Societies, it is instructive to read what they wrote about this issue recently in a blog post.

In our case, we wish to organise a professionally run meeting with over 1500 participants and a dozen sessions in parallel. We then want to add posters, question and answer / discussion sessions, and social events. To organise this, we need a stable software platform to handle this huge information stream, and to ensure that it works for everyone, from the first session, all the time, and from many different devices and computers. We use a professional system which uses zoom webinar licenses for the actual meetings, a separate custom-built e-poster system, slack for a discussion forum, and various other elements that need to work together. All of this costs money, and software license costs rise faster than the increasing number of participants.

Apart from this, we need a lot of the same infrastructure used for an in-person meeting, including registration, abstract handling, managing all the different SOCs, creating the final programme, managing exhibitors, training and managing volunteers and technical support staff, and managing the substantial finances involved in organising a meeting. Most of this support is provided by our long-term partner Kuoni. There is no other option, as the EAS has less than 1 FTE staff and the work involved is far too much to be done by volunteer astronomers.

It is also worth noting that we offer many more grants than we used to. These allow members from less affluent regions to attend the meeting. With the relatively low cost of attending a virtual meeting this is now a possibility, and allows us to offer a substantial number of fee waivers for 2021. This should lead to a more inclusive and diverse meeting.

We look forward to seeing many EAS members and non-members at the 2021 meeting. Those who truly cannot find funds to pay the registration fee are urged to apply for a fee waiver.