Dear reader,
We hope you have enjoyed NWO Life2025 and look back positively at the conference! The NWO Life2026 edition will take place on 28 and 29 May 2026, at Hotel Zuiderduin, Egmond aan Zee and we hope to see you there. New this year in the programme, will be the focus sessions.
Call for focus sessions
We hereby invite you to send in a suggestion for a focus session for NWO Life2026 by Thursday 30 October 2025. In a focus session, multiple invited speakers offer a cohesive overview of innovative and topical research on a focused (interdisciplinary) theme. The focus session should not be too specialised, but at the same time it should not span an entire research field.
Format of the focus sessions
The focus sessions have a length of 1h30m. The traditional format is to divide this over 3-4 speakers, each of which get 18-25 minutes to speak (including questions), but it is up to you whether you want to stick to this format or not. It is possible to, instead of a talk, fill a timeslot with alternative content e.g. panel discussions, pitches or a “duo” presentation together with a company or Topsector for instance. There are two restrictions:
a minimum of three speakers and
a maximum of one international speaker with an affiliation outside the Netherlands.
This restriction has been imposed to provide room for national scientists to present. There is a small budget available to reimburse travel cost for (international) focus session speakers (more details will follow later).
How to submit your focus session proposal
To submit a focus session, fill out this form by Thursday 30 October 2025, 14.00 CE(S)T. The submission consists of an abstract of your session and a short topic and career description of the speakers you intend to invite. In the attached PDF you can find the questions that are asked in the online submission form. We strongly suggest to take into account diversity of the speakers and initiators (e.g. career stage, gender, affiliation, national/international). You are also encouraged to involve early-career researchers, who are not part of your own research group, in your focus sessions.
Submitted focus sessions
The Programme Committee will assemble the focus session programme based on submitted suggestions. You will be informed around November/December if your session is selected. When your session is selected, you will be asked to organise and chair the session.
Please feel free to share this call with your colleagues. If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us at life@nwo.nl.
Kindest regards,
Joyce Burger, Alexander Hagemeijer & Els van der Goot
Organisation NWO Life2026
NWO Life | Dutch Research Council (NWO) | Domain Science | life@nwo.nl
Attachment: Application Form Questions for Focus Sessions NWO Life2026