Young Club

This year’s annual meeting was a bit different compared to what we are used to, with the virtual approach. The young club did however arrange a session aiming at Young Scientists as well as a social event as usual.

The focus of this year’s session, held on Thursday afternoon, was ”jobs for the future”. During the session, researchers working in five different continents gave presentations and offered their insights about pursuing a career within the continent they had experience from. Dr Fisher gave a North American perspective, Professor Pryce the Australian perspective, Professor Kenez the Asian perspective, Professor Fevre the African perspective and Professor Carvalho the South- American perspective. We heard a lot of insightful information and were able to broaden our views on the academic career from a global viewpoint. After the presentations there was a possibility to continue the discussions with some of our presenters as well as with Isabelle Ortigues who is the editor in Chief of Animal journal or representatives from the Young EAAP. The session finale was the virtual networking session where all participants were able to talk and interact with other young scientists at the conference.

In session 17 and 26 the Pig commission arranged the “Early career competition stressing innovation in pig production”. From the Young Club, Stafford Vigors participated as the representative in the Pig commission and were apart from chairing the session also part in the election f the best presentation during the day. The winner of the Wageningen Academic Publishers Early Career Award was Lisanne Verschuren who will recieve sposored conference fee for next years conference. Lisanne is a PhD candidate and presented her an abstract titled ”Microbiability of feed efficiency related traits in pigs”. Congratulations Lisanne!

YoungEAAP organizes activities for researchers and EAAP members within 10 years of their PhD. Also, at the annual meeting of Ghent 2019, a number of interesting gatherings were organized – read below how these went!

Award Sessions

The EAAP 2019 started on Monday with the Young Train Sessions of the Cattle and Pig Commissions. YoungEAAP joined the jury to award the best presentation using the following criteria: innovation, scientific content, presentation and enthusiasm of the presenter. For the one of the Cattle Commission sponsored by Novus, twelve Young Scientists presented their innovative dairy research with talks on dairy health, genetics, nutrition and sustainability issues. The final talk was given by Russel Pate, the ADSA NOVUS award 2018 winner from the USA. Finally, Dorien Van Wesemael from ILVO, Belgium with the presentation entitled ‘Combining rapeseed meal with brewers’ grains lowers methane emission intensity in dairy cows’ won the Novus Award. The Novus Award will grant Dorien to visit the US and present her work at the next Annual Meeting of the American Dairy Science Association from June 21-24 in West Palm Beach, Florida.

The Young Train of the Pig Commission had 21 talented young scientists participating in the Wageningen Academic Publishers early career competition, all giving very nice presentations and presenting high quality work. Winner of the award was Marcin Pszczola (Poland) with his presentation on ‘Verifying the existence of second litter syndrome in pigs’. He was rewarded the award with the following nominations “for showing great enthusiasm and storytelling, challenging existing knowledge and providing a clear, informative and educative presentation”. He will be granted free admission to next year’s EAAP conference in Porto. The three following speakers also gave particularly distinguish presentations, Lieselot Hemeryck (Belgium), for giving a very clear presentation with highly innovative research with an implementable approach. The presentation was easy to follow, with a nice layout. Lisanne Verschuren (The Netherlands), for speaking with passion about her science, giving an informative and accurate presentation that was perfectly prepared. Mathias Ottosen (UK), for excellent science in a very relevant area.  A natural speaker that was enthusiastic for questions and welcoming discussion.

Industry Speed Dating

On Tuesday evening the Industry Speed Dating Event took place. More than 30 young and early career scientists used this networking opportunity to ‘date’ industry representatives. The following companies were present: Cargill, DeLaval, Huvepharma, Kemin, MEX; Orffa and Proviron. In small groups, young scientists discussed together with the company representatives on how the companies are recruiting and integrating new staff, how future industry-driven research projects will look like and what expectations companies have for the skills of young scientists and future professionals.

Young Scientists Session

On Wednesday the Young Scientist session ‘Should I stay or should I go – a debate on pros and cons of alternative career options’ took place. The speakers were: Magdalena Åkerfeld (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden), Zhao Ying Cui (Soundtalks, Belgium), Gunnar Loh (Evonik Nutrition & Care GmbH, Germany) and Johan van Arendonk (Hendrix Genetics Research, Technology & Services B.V., The Netherlands). All these experienced researchers explained the highlights and important choices during their career. The main message for the young scientists was that sometimes you should take the leap when the right opportunities come along, and that no one choice is a fixed one as long as your open for new chances. During the interesting discussion that followed, many of the young scientists could point out their own situations and ask targeted advice to these experienced professionals.

Afterwards, another networking event for young scientists took place, in which Research Fellowships of the OECD were presented. Slides of the presentations can be requested at: christian.lambertz@fibl.org and more information can be found at www.oecd.org/agriculture/crp.

The group of Young Scientists is growing….

Starting last year, an additional position for a young and early career scientist representative in each Study Commission and Working Group was settled to support their work and increase the visibility of young scientist activities. Nearly all Study Commissions now have one or even two young scientist representatives. This year the study commissions appointed the following young scientists: Amelie Fisher from INRA, France (Cattle Commision), Maria Karatzia from the Research Institute of Animal Science, Hellenic Agricultural Organisation “Demeter”, Greece and Tiago da Silva Siqueira, Ecole d’Ingénieurs de Purpan, Université de Toulouse, France (Livestock Farming Systems), Matteo Ottoboni, Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety, University of Milan, Italy  and Marwa Shumo, Department of Ecology and Natural Resources Management, University of Bonn, Germany (Insects), Stafford Vigors, School of Agriculture & Food Science, University College Dublin, Ireland (Pigs) and Juliette Auclair-Ronzaud, Institut français du cheval et de l’équitation, France (Horse).

Ines Adriaens (KU Leuven, Belgium) joined the YoungEAAP board to follow up Anamarija Smetko (Croatian Agricultural Agency, Zagreb). She was secretary of the YoungEAAP from the very beginning in 2014 and put a lot of effort into the communication strategy of the ‘club’, for which we want to additionally acknowledge her here. Thanks!

Award Sessions

This year’s EAAP conference was full of Young Scientists activities. The week started with the Young Train Session: Dairy innovative research and extension on Monday. This session was hosted by Young EAAP together with the Cattle Commission. During the session the Novus Award was awarded to Ruth Bønløkke Davis from Aarhus University and SEGES in Denmark for her presentation entitled “Estimation of genetic parameters for young stock survival in Danish beef x dairy crossbred calves”. This study was part of her MSc thesis. The Novus Award will grant Ruth to visit the US and present her work at the next Annual Meeting of the American Dairy Science Association from June 23-26 in Cincanatti, Ohio.

The Wageningen Academic Publishers’ Award for the best presentation was awarded during the session Pig behavior and/or machine learning on Wednesday. The session was hosted together with the Pig Commission. Jen-Yun Chou from Teagasc in Ireland was awarded the price for her presentation “Rearing undocked pigs on fully-slatted floors using multiple enrichment and variety: a pilot”. Jen-Yun is a PhD student at Teagasc in collaboration with SRUC and the University of Edinburgh. She will be granted free admission to next year’s EAAP conference in Ghent.

The EAAP Rommert Politiek Award for the best poster was awarded to Nina Karapandža from the Croatian Agricultural Agency for her poster “Estimation of inbreeding and effective population size in Simmental cattle using genomic information”.

Speed Dating

As one of the highlights for young and early career scientists, the 1^st Speed Dating Event took place during the lunch break on Tuesday. Four specific research fields were selected (PLF, Health & Welfare, Cattle Genetics and Pig Production). For each of these fields, 3 representatives from the industry (icerobotics, idele and illumina), EU-projects (BioBusiness, Feed-a-Gene and GenTORE) and research institutions (Wageningen Livestock Research, Swedisch University of Agricultural Sciences, University of Zagreb) “dated” small groups of young scientists. More than 35 master and PhD students and early career PostDoc’s enjoyed to discuss in a relaxed atmosphere with the senior researchers about the hot research topics of the future, management of research projects and consortia and changing job requirements in academia and livestock industry.

As every year YoungEAAP enjoyed to support the Young Train Session – Dairy innovation in research and extension. Congratulations again to the two winners of the competition! Carlotta Giromini was awarded with the Novus Award for her presentation entitled “A comparison of the in vitro ACE inhibitory capacity of dairy and plant proteins”. She obtained her Ph.D in Biotechnologies applied to animal science and production from the University of Milan, Italy and is currently working as Post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety at the University of Milan. Novus invites her to the US to present her work at the next Annual Meeting of the American Dairy Science Association. Enjoy the trip! Biaty Raymond received the Wageningen Academic Publisher Award for his talk on “Utility of whole genome sequence data for across breed genomic prediction”. Currently, he is Ph.D candidate in Animal Breeding and Genomics at the Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands. He will get free admission to the next EAAP Annual Meeting. Phalla Miech (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) was awarded for the best poster, which was entitled “Growth of reared Cambodian field crickets (Teleogryllus testaceus) fed weeds, and agricultural and food industry by-products”. You can still have a look at it at the EAAP facebook page!

On Wednesday the YoungEAAP Session on “Rules and guidelines for successful funding and research: Opportunities for young scientists” attracted many young scientists. Hans Spoolder (Wageningen Livestock Research), Claire Wathes (Royal Veterinary College London) and Gus Rose (Aristothle University of Thessaloniki) gave us nice hints how to improve proposal writing. We will keep them in mind when we start to write a proposal next time! You can ask for the slides by mail to: christian.lambertz@unibz.it.

After the session, networking was intensified in a nice atmosphere in the young scientist reception.

The first highlight started on Monday morning with the Young Scientist Competition of the Genetics Commission will start, which continued on Tuesday afternoon.

During the Young Train Session on “Innovative research and extension in dairy farming, cattle and products, 14 high-quality presentations of young scientists competed for two awards. Akos Kenez (University of Hohenheim, Germany) won the Novus Award, offering a visit to the congress of the American Dairy Science Association. Diana Sorg (Martin Luther University Halle, Germany) received the Wageningen Academic Publishers Award, offering a scholarship to attend the EAAP Meeting in Tallinn.

The Session “Succession planning for European livestock farmers” was organized jointly by Young EAAP, Ulster Farmer Union and the Young Farmer Club of Ulster. The Session was divided into the two sections “Succession Status, Dynamics and Drivers in EU Livestock Farming” and “Industry and Policy Responses to Succession Issues”.

After the three “Young Scientist” Sessions the social meeting of Young Scientists took place with delicious sacks and drinks.

The Young train session  “Dairy innovative research and extension” was chaired by the club, during which 11 young scientists from all over Europe competed with their presentations for two awards. The selection procedure was very challenging, because all young scientists gave excellent presentations on various interesting topics related to dairy production. Akke Kok from Wageningen University won the JAM2016 award sponsored by Novus for her presentation on “Comparing cows – including dry period and lactation length in a yield measure”. The second award for  EAAP 2016 attendance sponsored by Wageningen Academic Press received Johanna Brändle from BOKU-University of Natural Resource and Life Sciences Vienna for her talk on “Bacterially induced cheese blowing defects with particular attention to butyric acid clostridia”.

On Tuesday, YoungEAAP held its industry session entitled with “Important factors to consider when applying for academia and industry jobs”. The session focused on preparing young scientists to future careers in academia and industry. Invited speaker Dr. Leon Spicer, Oklahoma State University, presented 2 sessions on CV vs resume writing, and interviewing skills: tips for do’s and don’ts. He brought in words and advice from Dr. Michael Pearce, Zoetis, Belgium. The session was attended by more than 35 young scientists. Discussions and a social networking event followed. The session was extremely helpful due to its practical nature. Many young scientists commented on how important such soft skills are for making them better prepared for the job market especially that this is the first session of its kind that they attend. YoungEAAP intends to bring more such sessions to assist young scientists in developing their curriculum with more skills to better equip them for competitiveness.

The “Genetics commission early career scientist competition” was held as a competition for best presentation among young scientists in genetics field with YoungEAAP being part of the jury. After a tough competition, Inga Blunk from Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN) won with her presentation on “A new model for an imprinting analysis of Brown Swiss slaughterhouse data”. The second price went to Marna Martinez-Alvaro from Universitat Politécnica de Valencia for her poster presentation on “Effect of divergent selection for intramuscular fat on lipid metabolism traits in rabbits”.

Young EAAP organized 2 events and participated in judging two competitions during the EAAP 2014.

The Young Train session had 14 young researchers presenting on dairy innovatives and extension research. Presentations were extremely competitive. The Schaumann Stiftung Award to attend the JAM 2015 in Florida, USA went to Anne Fischer from INRA, France whereas the Wageningen Academic Publishers Award to attend the EAAP 2015 meeting in Warsaw, Poland went to Marco Horn from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Austria.

Under the challenge program “Careers in the Livestock Industry”, our club hosted representatives from different sections of the Livestock Industry who gave interesting overviews of their career paths. Reinhard Grandke, Director General of the German Agricultural Society, Simon Lague, Business Development Manager for Fancom BV and creator of the iFarming brand philosophy, and Michael Pearce, Zoetis Animal Health, all gave very interesting insights into their expectations on the qualifications and skills of young scientists. Lively discussions during our ice cream social followed.

The commission on animal genetics started a joined competition for young scientists under 35 years of age. Our club participated in judging 14 oral presentations of excellent quality and the jury, composed of members of the animal genetics commission, had a hard time deciding on a winner. Finally, Han Mulder from Wageningen University was selected.