With 338 registered participants this twelfth edition of the VLIZ Young Marine Scientists Day - held on Friday 24 February in KHBO, Bruges - was again a success. The floor was given to near a hundred young researchers to show their scientific results, covering the full range of marine disciplines. The public voted the best speaker and poster. The prizes of the VLIZ Thesis Awards and the North Sea Award were handed over to the winners by the new governor of West-Flanders, Carl Decaluwé. All winners, abstracts, posters, photo and video of this 2012 edition can be found here.

Book of abstracts & lists presentations The abstracts of all participants and award winners can be found in the Book of Abstracts (VLIZ Special Publications 55). It gives you a nice overview of the current marine research in Flanders and surroundings. Twenty contestants were invited to prepare a short pitch presentation (max. 5 minutes) for the plenary session. The others could present their work during the poster session. The audience could vote the best oral and the best scientific poster.

Top-3 pitch presentations 1: Michiel Vandegehuchte - Plastic waste in the Belgian coastal waters: where and how much? [[pitch presentation:] [Clip] 2: Lisbeth Van Cauwenberghe - Selective uptake of microplastics by a marine bivalve (Mytilus edulis) [[pitch presentation:] 3: Ronny Merken - Wetland suitability and connectivity for migratory birds along the Ionian Flyway in Greece [[pitch presentation:]

Top-3 scientific posters 1: Smolders Sven, Stefaan Ides, Yves Plancke, Patrick Meire and Stijn Temmerman - Morphological management as a tool to optimize the three main functions of the Scheldt Estuary: safety, accessibility and ecology [] [Clip] 2: Vanden Eede Sarah and Magda Vincx - Can we protect our coastline and the beach ecosystem at the same time? [] [Clip]

3: Desender Marieke, Hans Polet, Koen Chiers, Maarten Soetaert and Annemie Decostere - Evaluation of the impact of electro shrimp trawl fishery [] [Clip] Other posters Other poster presentations delivered to VLIZ, are made available in the Open Marine Archive (OMA). Key-note speakers

Inge Van Nieuwerburgh (Ghent University, Digital Library) - Boosting your visibility in Open Access [[pitch presentation via] Jean Berlamont (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Hydraulics Laboratory) - Why do we love the sea? Because it makes us think of things we like to think [] [[pitch presentation via Clip] Michael N. Moore (Plymouth Marine Laboratory) - Oceans and Human Health [only abstract available] [Clip]

Photo & Video Pictures and video-clips are made available in the VLIZ photo gallery. Soon we will add a short reportage of the 2012 edition of the VLIZ Young Marine Scientists Day.

VLIZ North Sea Award 2011 dr. Eric Struyf: 'Historical land use change has lowered terrestrial silica mobilization' - [research article in Nature Communications (2010)] [[pitch presentation:] VLIZ Thesis Award Marine Sciences 2011 Elisabeth Debusschere: 'Effect of ocean acidification on the early life stages of the Baltic tellin Macoma balthica' - [M.Sc. scriptie UGent - EMBC] [pitch presentation:] Lorenz Meire: 'Impact of global change on coastal hypoxia' - [M.Sc. scriptie UGent - MARELAC] [[pitch presentation:]