Workshops & Roundtables
Note that you need to mention during the Registration process if you are interested in participating in one or more of these workshops, to aid in scheduling.
Workshops will be held on Monday 30 June 2025 and Friday 4 July 2025 at the Museum of Natural History ISEA PAS and at the conference room of ISEA PAS
– details on where each workshop will be held will be announced in the third circular
3D models via photogrammetry – how to get, process and present 3D models using free software
By: Dawid Drozdz (independent researcher)
Duration: 60 min
Maximum number of participants: 25
Date: Monday 30 June 2025
Description: Participants will be able to learn how to create 3D models from photographs via photogrammetry with free softwares VisualSFM and MeshLab, how to easily process it with MeshLab as well as how to render the model in order to prepare publication figures.
Additional equipment: Personal laptop with installed programs, list of programs will be provided by the organizer.
Intellectual property, protection and plagiarism: 'This time it's personal'
By: Elzbieta M. Teschner (University of Opole) and Jeff Liston (Utrecht University)
Duration: 120 min
Maximum number of participants: 45
Date: Monday 30 June 2025
Description: This workshop will endeavour to inform those on a palaeo career path of possible dangers and risks regarding intellectual property and research idea misappropriations, using anecdotal evidence and experiences to illustrate a range of possible circumstances where your intellectual copyright can be compromised. This workshop will cover the range of scenarios in which palaeontologists can be divested of their intellectual copyright, including through job applications, development of ideas and fighting for your authorship, as well as how you can protect yourself against this. Areas to be covered include - but are not limited to - contribution accreditation, appropriate authorship and plagiarism.
All levels of career stage can be affected by this phenomenon and as such all are welcome to attend and contribute.
Because you've got to fight, for your right, to (your intellectual pro)party.
Improv-Palaeo: improvisational theatre as a tool for developing skills in communicating science
By: Elena Cuesta (Museo Paleontolo gico Egidio Feruglio, Chubut)
Duration: 120 min
Maximum number of participants: 20
Date: Monday 30 June 2025
Description: Are you afraid of going blank in the middle of your talk? Do you feel like the audience falls asleep during your talks? Would you like to be able to tell your research more dynamically? With this workshop, we will develop tools that will allow you to improve your narrative in your oral presentations using theatrical improvisation techniques. Although it may seem that theatre and science cannot go hand in hand, the truth is that having oratory skills on stage is increasingly valuable to tell our research so that it can reach more people. Isn't what we study in palaeontology part of one of the most wonderful stories on this planet, the history of life? Why not learn to be great storytellers in which our research and the people who make it possible are the protagonists? In this workshop, although short, we will learn through different theatrical improvisation dynamics how to narrate our research in a fluid, enjoyable way without losing scientific rigour. No previous experience is required; all we need is the desire to enjoy ourselves in a safe space and acquire skills to feel tremendous confidence about our oral talks.
Women in Palaeontology
By: Femke Holwerda (Utrecht University), Elzbieta M. Teschner (University of Opole), and Veronica Díez Díaz (Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin)
Duration: 60-90 min
Maximum number of participants: 30
Date: Monday 30 June 2025
Description: We hereby would like to present our annual EAVP Women in Palaeontology roundtable. We strive for an equitable, comfortable atmosphere whilst discussing issues faced by women in Palaeontology and in STEM in general. This year’s focus will be (not exclusively) on:
-reviewers questioning women’s expertise in papers submitted for publication; -reviewers actively stalling or sabotaging women’s papers submitted for publication, delaying publication and potentially causing career harm;
-issues faced by women in academia (motherhood, careers, harassment, etc).
Any other topics for discussion will be asked for prior to the roundtable (via, for instance, social media channels), and can also be submitted on the spot.
Make yourself a Palaeo-Event-Kit
By: Sandra Hahle (independent)
Duration: 120 min
Maximum number of participants: 30
Date: Friday 4 July 2025
Description: On-site events, museum festivities or campus parties, scientists are pressured to be not only the scientist but also the entertainer and the PR team.
This workshop is for scientists new to science communication and will offer a quick walk through on planning a scientific outreach in an entertainment setting. The goal is to create a low effort sci-ed concept that gives palaeontologists a confidence boost for scientific outreach. After a theoretical/practical input., the participants are invited to discuss their own ideas/projects with the group
Disseminating palaeobiodiversity: palaeontology meets palaeoart
By: Matteo Belvedere (Università degli Studi di Firenze), Joschua Knüppe (Independent), Isacco Alberti (Università degli Studi di Firenze), Filippo Bertozzo (Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels), Fabio Manucci (Associazione Paleontologica
Paleoartistica Italiana), and Simone Zoccante (Independent)
Duration: 150 min
Maximum number of participants: 45
Date: Friday 4 July 2025
Description: In the last decades, a renewed interest in palaeontology coincided with the rise of a substantial number of new palaeoartists in Europe, and this number is increasing year after year. The advent of the Internet and social media have aided and are aiding as we speak a wider flow of concepts, ideas, hypotheses, and memes. The scientific value of palaeoartistic artworks has been positively recognized in these years, with a higher number of artworks within the scientific literature.
However, this fast and unexpected developments of new palaeoartists and palaeoartworks did not match a proper development of working guidelines, regulations and formal discussion groups. Palaeoartists were, and still are, alone in their job and can suffer from a wide range of problems, which can depend on the lack of inter-exchange between researchers and artists (e.g., costs, bureaucracy, copyright, etc.). In addition, the recent development of AI-generated images creates threatening issues for palaeoartists on the one side, and for the accuracy of palaeobiological reconstruction on the other.
We are making here a round table where palaeontologists and palaeoartists can meet and exchange opinions, views, ideas, and future perspectives on palaeoart. This symposium will also be used to revive the informal group of the EAVPa, “European Association of Vertebrate Palaeoartists” as a linking tool between research and art.
The symposium will be moderated both by both a palaeontologist and a palaeoartist.