From July 19, to 23, 2021, the University of Bremen will be hosting the world’s largest coral reef conference: the International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS 2021 VIRTUAL). It is planned that around 1,500 scientists will partake in the virtual conference. Alongside the symposium, several events surrounding the significance and endangerment of coral reefs will be taking place in Bremen. Some examples are the current “Coral Reefs – Varying. Vulnerable. Vanishing?” exhibition in the Übersee Museum and a film evening on July 18, 2021
Originally, it was planned for the international conference to take place last year under the name “14th ICRS 2020,” however, the symposium had to be postponed due to the pandemic. The ICRS conference organization team from the University of Bremen developed a new concept under the lead of Professor Christian Wild: A solely digital event named “14th ICRS 2021 VIRTUAL” that will take place over five days from July 19, to 23, 2021. Additionally, a face-to-face event – as was originally planned – is to take place in Bremen under the name “15th ICRS 2022 IN-PERSON” from July 3, to 8, 2022. It is the first time in the over 50-year history of the ICRS that the conference will take place in Bremen, Germany, and Europe.
The ICRS is by far the most significant worldwide conference that focuses on the coral reef ecosystems. Since 1967, people from academia, coastal management, environmental protection, and politics have usually been meeting every four years to present their current research findings. This conference has become particularly important as there is a global coral reef crisis and the existence of these ecosystems is in danger. The main causes are climate change, over fishing, and the pollution of the seas.
Further information and contact: Heinz Krimmer, ICRS 2021 Conference Team, Marine Ecology, University of Bremen, email: heinz.krimmerprotect me ?!icrs2021protect me ?!.de, www.icrs2021.de
A virtual conference focusing on the field of automata theory will also take place from July 19, to 23, 2021. The International Conference on Implementation and Application of Automata mainly looks at the practical application and implementation of theoretic models from automata theory and related fields. Purely theoretical work will also be presented. A workshop dedicated to this topic was carried out for the first time in 1996. The conference has been taking place under the aforementioned title since 2000. The chosen talks for this year’s conference in Bremen will be held by Mikolaj Bojanczyk from the University of Warsaw, Javier Esparza from the Technical University of Munich, and Jeffrey Shallit from the University of Waterloo.
Further information and contact: Professor Sebastian Maneth, Faculty of Mathematics / Computer Science, University of Bremen, email: manethprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de, http://wwwdb.informatik.uni-bremen.de/ciaa2021/
