6th European Student Council Symposium (ESCS): overcoming obstacles to enhance virtuality, connectivity, inclusivity and community engagement

Abstract

This editorial summarises the organisation, activities, and scientific content of the 6th European Student Council Symposium (ESCS) organised by the International Society for Computational Biology Student Council (ISCB-SC). The event was held on September 6, 2020, as a satellite event preceding the ISCB’s  19th European Conference in Computational Biology. Both events were first planned to be held in-person in Sitges, Spain, but moved virtually as a strategy to face the SARS-CoV2 sanitary crisis. This completely unforeseen situation has posed several challenges that have been successfully addressed thanks to the robust ISCB Student Council community structure and the strong commitment of the organisers. Despite all the obstacles and challenges, we have found that virtuality has several advantages that can continue to be kept to improve in-person meetings in the future and make conferences more inclusive allowing a larger audience to participate.