Opening of Conference #
Opening of Bergen Conference
Sept. 11, 2012
Report by Hermann Maurer, PPT by David Coates
My report can be quite short, since most of it is nicely presented in a Powerpoint Presentation David Coates has prepared. So I will just give a very short survey and a few pictures I have taken. Then I recommend you look at the presentation.
The opening of the conference started with a surprise: a choir of the University of Bergen welcomed us with “Gaudeamus Igitur” and two Norwegian songs.
Then the conference was officially opened by the President of the Academia Europaea Professor Lars Walløe MAE, and the Rector of the University of Bergen Professor Sigmund Grønmo MAE.
Lars Walløe then handed over the Erasmus medals to the two winners this year, Geoffrey Burnstock MAE (London) and Tomas Hökfelt MAE (Stockholm).
This was followed by the presentation of Burgen scholarships and some of the new members of Academaia Europaea (i.e. those who were elected a year ago and were known to attend the conference).
The session was supposed to culminate with lectures given by the two Erasmus winners: both Burnstock and Hökfelt are indeed very prominent and successful researchers with an almost unbelievable record. However, both failed as speakers in this environment to some extent: rather than giving an overview of the important area of neuron transmitters they are working on that would enlighten the whole audience they gave very technical talks (Hökfelt salted with some anecdotes) from which only the few specialists in the audience were able to profit. However, see the interesting short video
of Burnstock!
This not so successful start of the conference was made up by a spectacular reception by the Vice Major of Bergen (see Bergen and Social Activities).
Much more on the Opening in the PPT here
!#
