Announcement about the Marine Microbial Chemical Communication Conference
From 17-20 March NIOZ is hosting an international symposium on Marine Microbial Chemical Communication. This is an international symposium with scientists visiting from all over the world. The Weizmann Institute of Science of Israel is one of the cosponsors. Since there is no official policy from our government or NWO-I on collaboration with Israeli institutes, the NIOZ has made its own careful consideration of whether to go ahead with the symposium. The directorate of NIOZ agreed to host this symposium and allow this institute as a cosponsor, as the subject matter is of core interest to our department Marine Microbiology and Biogeochemistry and is not in any way related to defence research (dual use).
It is important to emphasise that NIOZ as an organisation does not take a political position in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and as such the decision to go ahead with the symposium does not mean at all an endorsement of recent Israeli action in Gaza. Participation is open to individual scientists from all over the world, including those from Israel, since science is a means of communication that we value very highly.