On Friday 27 November all marine scientists of Flanders and surrounding met! Because of the 10^th anniversary of the Flanders Marine Institute a special edition of the VLIZ Young Scientists' Day was organised in Hotel Thermae Palace in Oostende. Here you can find all winners of the contests and pictures of the event.

With almost 150 scientific posters and a voluminous Book of abstracts (*) one can get a good view on the marine research in Flanders anno 2009. The audience present could vote the best scientific poster. With 278 participants this edition was the most successful Young Scientists' Day ever. the top-3: 1: Wim Van Neer & Anton Ervynck - ‘Shifting baselines’. The archaeology of the North Sea fish 2: Klaas Pauly - Kite aerial photography for monitoring remote nature reserves: a test case in a green turtle breeding area on Masirah Island (Oman) 3: Fiddy Semba Prasetiya - The effect of floating net cage aquaculture on the community structure of phytoplankton in Djuanda Reservoir, West Java – Indonesia

From the submitted abstract 30 scientists were selected to present their work in a 'pitching' oral presentation of 5 minutes maximally. The specific task was an exercise in science communication: "Communicate your work – and its importance to society – in an exciting way to a wider public.".

A critic jury of science communicators and journalists judged the exercise.They gave a load of suggestions on how to present in a clear, concise and attractive way to a general public. The professional jury (from left to right): Liesbeth Gijsel - editor in chief of EOS Magazine Sooike Stoops - science communicator of VIB Jan Seys - science communicator VLIZ and president of the jury Lieven Scheire - science vulgarization Woestijnvis Pieter Van Dooren - science communicator ITG

Their top-3: 1: Michiel Claessens - Microplastics in our seas: an invisible danger? [] 2: Steven Degraer - Are trammel net fisheries a cure for the disease called fisheries impact? or… “the WAKO story” [] 3: Frederik De Laender - Ecosystems under stress: how well do they function? [] With honorable mention: Farid Dahdouh-Guebas - Shelter from the storm? Use and isuse of bioshields for managing natural disasters on the coast []

Mieke Mathys - Secrets below the Belgian seafloor… [] Klaas Pauly - Capturing the coast from above. Cheap Aerial Photography with a kite [] Evert Lataire - Sailing through a shallow sea [] Anton Ervynck - 'Shifting baselines'. The archeology of the North Sea fish [] Liesbeth Weijs - The fin whale from Antwerp: a toxicological perspective []

The orla presentations were also judged by the present audience. Their top-3: 1: Michiel Claessens - Microplastics in our seas: an invisible danger? [] 2: Liesbeth Weijs - The fin whale from Antwerp: a toxicological perspective [] 3: Klaas Pauly - Capturing the coast from above. Cheap Aerial Photography with a kite []

More pictures of this day: in the VLIZ-photo gallery.

(*) Interested to receive a paper version of this publication? Contact info@vliz.be or 059 34 21 30.