2026 Symposium

The Scottish Microscopy Society's
2026 Symposium

17th November 2026

John McIntyre Conference Centre, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5AY

Registration

Registration is now open until Monday 2nd November 2026. Please see details of the travel fund below before registering.

Travel, Accommodation & Registration
Fund – up to £100

We are pleased to be offering our Travel Fund again this year, supported by SULSA and the Scottish Microscopy Society.

The fund provides up to £100 towards travel, accommodation, and/or registration costs.

If you would like to apply, please submit your application here before registering via Eventbrite. The deadline for these submissions is 7th October at 5pm.

Abstract Submission

We strongly encourage ECRs to submit an abstract for an oral or poster presentation. This is a great opportunity to present in a friendly environment, to win prizes and to interact with peers in the microscopy community.

We welcome submissions for both oral and poster presentations. 

  • Oral presentation deadline: Monday 19th October 2026 at 5pm
  • Poster presentation deadline: Monday 2nd November 2026 at 5pm

You can submit one abstract only. Applicants for oral presentations will be notified after the submission deadline whether their abstract has been selected for a talk.

This year, we’re introducing a dedicated afternoon poster session, giving you plenty of time to view the posters and chat with presenters in depth.

Keynote Speaker

We are delighted to welcome Dr Jost Enninga, Head of the Dynamics of Host-Pathogen Interactions Unit at the Institut Pasteur, Paris, as our keynote speaker.

Jost’s group develops novel fluorescence microscopy assays for tracking pathogen invasion processes, measuring multiple parameters to correlate pathogen behaviours, intracellular localisation and host responses in real time.

Scottish Microscopist of the Year

The Symposium will  include a talk by the soon-to-be-announced winner of the 2026 Scottish Microscopist of the Year Award – keep an eye out for details of the winner’s contribution to Scottish microscopy.

Image Competition

Our image competition will be running as part of this year’s symposium.

Image submission is open until 5pm on Thursday 12th November 2026

*Please note: you will need to sign into a Google account to view the form and upload your image. (Contact us if you’re not able to do this)

All images will be displayed at the conference, as well as being uploaded to our website. 

The symposium is a great opportunity to meet facility managers from different universities, who can give you more information on the microscopes and techniques available in Scotland.

This year’s symposium is kindly supported by our trade partners who will have technobites and stands on the day