We are living in extraordinary times. Life, as we know it, has stopped and we have entered a new area, which requires new modes of thinking, behaving and communicating. As scientists, we are used to it. How could research be anything else but permanent change and adapting to new situations?

This year we will change how the medal winners are announced. Traditionally the winners have been announced at the BLCS conference. It was never a big surprise, more an open secret. A look at the conference program was enough to see who won.  Under the present circumstances we have decided to break with the tradition and disclose the list of recipients before the conference since a new date for it is not yet decided and we do not want the cliff hanger to go on for too long.

The winners  of 2020 BLCS prize winners are

All recipients will receive the medals at the upcoming conference. They cannot escape the warm handshake, the party and the talks. These are our ‘Oscars’ and we need the ‘thank you’ speeches and the glamour of the conference dinner. Let’s hope that we will not wait for too long for that.

Keep well and keep thinking outside the box.

Due to the continued spread of covid-19, we have taken the difficult decision to postpone the 2020 BLCS meeting, due to be held 6-8th April in Aberdeen.

Seeing that many universities across the Europe and the US have closed/switched to online classes, coupled with an increasing number of UK universities – including the University of Aberdeen – advising against (inter)national travel, we think we would see our numbers suffer/not get the best of the conference and, more importantly, we don’t want to risk our delegates, especially our international visitors.

We would like to emphasise that this is at this time a postponement rather than a cancellation – we will see how the covid-19 situation progresses over the summer months, and in the best case scenario, we would propose holding the meeting in early September instead. Of course, this is dependent on the global situation improving.

​More information to follow. Please get in touch at BLCS2020@abdn.ac.uk if you have any urgent questions or concerns.

We apologise for the inconveniences this may cause, and thank you in advance for your understanding.

At the next BLCS annual meeting in Aberdeen 2020 we are looking for nominations for a Vice-Chair position (4 year appointment) and a student representatives (2 year appointment) onto the steering committee.

Nominations for committee must be sent to the Secretary by 19th March 2020. Both nominees and nominators MUST be members of the Society and the express permission of the nominee must be obtained. Nomination forms are on the last page of this letter and can also be downloaded from here.

I would encourage you all members to consider nominating for his role in the community. For further details and current committee members you can view the Information Pages or the call original call here.