In person, at the first real-life event since COVID-19

Being at one of the first in-person conferences since COVID-19 was surreal, but valuable, writesscidev.net执行编辑本·迪顿（Ben Deighton）。

(意大利的里雅斯特)是“t just the constant temperature checks, hand sanitiser stations and sea of masked faces. There is something extremely surreal about attending a real-life conference in the throes of the新冠肺炎大流行。

scidev.netwas one of the few international publications to attend the EuroScience Open Forum in Trieste, Italy, from 1 to 6 September. This was — to our knowledge — the first international conference to hold an in-person meeting since the beginning of the pandemic.

该会议着眼于欧洲及其他地区的科学与社会之间的交叉路口，自2004年在斯德哥尔摩推出以来，它一直在另一个欧洲城市举行。

The event was run in a hybrid format, with the majority of sessions either online, or featuring a mix of online and in-person speakers. It was a bold move by organisers EuroScience, and one that paid off.

“我们这里有研究人员，老师，科学记者，科学传播者，科学决策者，有兴趣的公民，”欧洲科学企业总裁迈克尔·马特洛斯（Michael Matlosz）告诉我。

“我们想要的是利用这个机会，在人们之间不太可能遇到。”

马特洛斯（Matlosz）早些时候在会议的开幕典礼上说，由于19日大流行，与以往任何时候都将科学置于显微镜下比以往任何时候都重要。

“It was unthinkable for us… that the opportunity for those exchanges, discussions and debates, precisely during this crucial period in our history when the interaction between science and society is so important should not take place.

“ESOF is more important than ever today.”

While crowds in Trieste were of course thinner than previous conferences, the organisers say some 2500 people registered for the event, with more than 1000 participating in person.

这还不错，考虑到所有事情。相比之下，2018年在图卢兹参加了以前的会议版本。

在意大利特里斯特的2020年欧洲科学家公开论坛的社会距离开幕式。学分：菲奥娜扫帚

科学中的许多知名人士都亲自出现，包括CERN的负责人Fabiola Gianotti和意大利大学和研究部长Gaetano Manfredi。甚至意大利总理朱塞佩·孔戴（Giuseppe Conte）也参加了闭幕式。

It was hard to network during the conference as the masks meant you were never quite sure whether you had met someone before — meaning that everyone was frantically nodding and blinking at each other throughout the event, just in case.

But in the end, you got used to it.

“这是新的常态，”高性能计算实验室主任卡洛·卡瓦佐尼（Carlo Cavazzoni）说，他正在亲自主持会议，尽管所有演讲者都很遥远，因此他可以在特里斯特（Trieste）见面。

“当您习惯它时，与往常一样，互动就会变得像往常一样，在与人互动时，我不会被面具阻塞。”

我不得不说，我同意。我认为2020年ESOF展示了面对面会议的价值，只要正确的预防措施即可。