Photo by Catalina Johnson on Unsplash
In May of 2024 I was able to attend the European Renal Association (ERA) in Stockholm thanks to the conference support award offered by Manchester Met (now the Research and Innovation Conference Fund).
The ERA is the largest Renal focused conference in Europe and the experience was enlightening for an early career kidney research student such as myself, I was able to get a glimpse of the work going on around the world that was furthering the field and our understanding of the issues surrounding kidney disease whether they be clinical, diagnostic, prognostic or the mechanisms of the disease itself.
Stepping into the Stockholmsmässan center where the ERA was held, I was greeted with innumerable talks and workshops on every aspect of kidney biology lasting for 4 days, it was difficult to decide from the giant timetable what would be relevant to my work. Working in research it is very easy to get attached to your work and it becoming the center of your world, going to a big international conference makes you realise that you are merely a voice in a chorus but I found it heartening that so many were working in this field and they too went through the same ups and downs, the same roadblocks, the same fears that I was going through in my research and they were able to achieve great feats.
Attending multiple lectures from experienced professionals every day could lead to information overload, but the variety of presentational styles and formats kept each session fresh as well as the many break-out areas and food spots granting rest and opportunities to speak to fellow researchers with potential to collaborate. It was a very well thought out and executed conference, it was no surprise that it’s one of the largest and most popular renal conferences in the world.
I was fortunate enough to be selected to perform an oral presentation at the conference, while giving a 7-minute talk on a single slide might sound simple, but summarising 2 years of work focused on a novel and complex topic to fit on a single slide was incredibly difficult. I also needed to make sure my presentation was accessible to the large variety of attendees and prepare for questions coming from experts in many fields. I believe it went well and was asked several questions that made me think differently about my research particularly about how it could be used by clinicians.
Overall, it was an enlightening experience I won’t forget, and I will be submitting an abstract for next year’s ERA conference. To all doctoral students I implore you to try to attend large conferences, funding support is there to assist you for this purpose. So don’t immediately write off conferences because they would be expensive for you, being able to share your research on a grand scale or just being able to see where the field is going and meeting fellow passionate researchers is not something you can do staying in the lab.
