Milan – the meeting place

Wrocław promotes itself as a 'meeting place', but in the case of the ScienceNet project, the place where almost all project participants met was Milan. UPWr was represented by as many as 7 people (prof. Wojciech Niżański, prof. Małgorzata Ochota, Dr. Sylwia Prochowska and PhD students: Maria Eberhardt, Meriem Baouche, Zuzanna Ligocka and Tania Holumbiovska), and a delegation from UGhent was similarly numerous (including prof. Ann van Soom and PhD students who completed internships in Wrocław as part of the project - Guillaume Domaine and Hiba Ali Hassan). VetMedUni was represented by prof. Christine Aurich and prof. Sabine Schaffer-Somi. Only prof. Alain Fontbonne was absent, unable to come for health reasons.


The occasion for the meeting was an international congress devote to reproduction of companion animals - the 24th EVSSAR Congress in a Joint Meeting with the 9th Quadrennial International Symposium on Canine and Feline Reproduction, run by Prof. Gaia Cecilia Luvoni with her team (UniMi) as a local organizing committee. Among the many thematic lecture sessions, one was devoted to the NAWA APM ScienceNet project. The first speech was given by prof. Wojciech Niżański, who presented the aims of the project, the results obtained so far, as well as the subject of using reproductive biotechnologies to save endangered species of wild animals. The presentation attracted the attention of Dr. William Swanson from the Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife - an undeniable guru in the field of wild cat conservation, who proposed cooperation with the European network created under the project. The remaining speeches were presented by doctoral students who presented the research results obtained as part of the project. The speech by a PhD student from Belgium, Rob van Leeuwenberg, was awarded by the congress's scientific committee.


During backstage talks, further joint research was agreed and future cooperation was discussed. After the congress, the UPWr delegation had the opportunity to visit the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Milan, located in Lodi.