The FEBS-IUBMB-ENABLE conferences are 3-day international and interdisciplinary events for PhD students and postdocs, hosted at a different research institute each year. These events are organized by young scientists for other young scientists, and they offer an opportunity to learn, network, explore career options, and gain skills in outreach and science communication. Find more details on the FEBS-IUBMB-ENABLE conference website.

Latest news

Registration for the FEBS-IUBMB-ENABLE 2024 conference is still open. The event will be hosted by the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore), on 4–6 December 2024.

More information is available on the FEBS-IUBMB-ENABLE conference website, and you can follow the conference on X, Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn.

The FEBS-IUBMB-ENABLE 2023 conference was successfully hosted by the University of Cologne on 23–25 November 2023, in Cologne, Germany.  The FEBS-IUBMB-ENABLE 2025 conference will take place  at the CRUK Scotland Institute in Glasgow, UK.

BACKGROUND ON THE FEBS-IUBMB-ENABLE EVENTS

Based on a successful project funded by the EU H2020 Research and Innovation Programme, the FEBS-IUBMB-ENABLE conference series is a joint initiative of FEBS, IUBMB (the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) and four leading biomedical research institutes across Europe: the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (Barcelona, Spain), the Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences (Nijmegen, the Netherlands), the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research (Copenhagen, Denmark), and the European School of Molecular Medicine (Milan, Italy).

Since 2017, the ENABLE consortium comprising these four institutes has promoted international, interdisciplinary 3-day conferences organized by and for young researchers from the molecular life sciences disciplines, bringing together up to 300 participants from all over the world. From 2017 to 2021, these annual gatherings were hosted by one of the partner research institutes of the consortium.

In this period, FEBS and IUBMB were the main sponsors of the events, awarding more than 40 travel grants and thus allowing young researchers to attend the conferences in Barcelona, Copenhagen and Nijmegen (due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event that should have been held in Milan in 2020 was postponed to May 2021 and was held online). In 2021, FEBS, IUBMB and ENABLE announced they were joining forces to give continuity to these successful events and to offer research institutes devoted to molecular life sciences worldwide the opportunity to host and participate in the organization of one of these conferences. The ensuing FEBS-IUBMB-ENABLE 2022 conference, with the title “The perfect tandem: How technology expands the frontiers of biomedicine”, was hosted by the Institute of Biomedicine of Seville (IBiS), in Spain, on 16–18 November 2022. This was followed by the FEBS-IUBMB-ENABLE 2023 conference, with the title “THE EMERGING CHALLENGE – Environmental impacts on human health”, at the University of Cologne, Germany, on 23–25 November 2023,

These events stand out because they have been organized by a scientific committee of young researchers (PhD students and postdocs) from several European institutions. The annual gatherings comprise various parts, the most significant being a scientific symposium, which seeks to explore the latest research and pioneering developments in the molecular life sciences. Coupled to this symposium, a wide range of activities focused on employment opportunities, including a career day, career workshops and a job fair, are also organized.

These conferences also seek to engage the public via outreach activities especially tailored to target certain audiences. In addition to the relevance of public engagement, these activities provide an ideal training opportunity for PhD students and postdocs interested in science communication. The FEBS-IUBMB-ENABLE conference series seeks to empower young researchers by giving them the necessary tools and inspiration to successfully organize a set of activities aimed at their peers.