It is with a heavy heart that, after much hesitation and deliberation, we have decided to cancel the IASPM Benelux International Conference, planned for 7–9 October 2021 at the University of Antwerp.
Thanks to a very high vaccination rate (to date, over 70% is fully vaccinated), Belgium is currently under a “code green” regime. In theory, this means that higher education institutions can hold live, in-person activities. However, as all priority is given to teaching (rightly so), external events like ours are subjugated to strict protocols.
This means that we are unable to hold a reception (thereby reducing the conferences to two days only), a conference dinner, and all lunches and coffee breaks would have to be taken seated and socially distanced (1,5 meter). This would transform our conference from a warm social gathering to a clinical, cold experience focused only on the “knowledge transfer” component. Furthermore, Belgium continues to uphold strict entry protocols for travellers from abroad, impacting primarily non-EU visitors and those from red zones (which is virtually all of Europe these days), which requires extra administration and, possibly, testing upon entry. Rather than offer you a subpar event or a hastily-organized online substitute, we have taken the decision to cancel the conference. After three attempts (May 2020, October 2020, and October 2021), COVID-19 has finally caught up with us.
Rather than a single online conference, we are currently looking into offering a range of future (online) events as part of our PopTalks series. You will be automatically informed of these in due time.
The next large international IASPM event we are looking forward to is the June 2022 International conference in Daegu, South Korea. We hope to meet you there again, be it in-person or on screen.
The IASPM Benelux board
Oliver, Chris, Melanie, Femke, and Matthias