Dear EWRS members and friends,
As we enter the autumn period, EWRS is moving into a particularly active and exciting season. The coming months offer numerous opportunities for our members to meet, exchange knowledge, strengthen existing collaborations and create new ones across the different areas of weed science.
Our Working Groups have prepared an impressive programme of activities. On 27-29 October, the Working Groups on Weed Vegetation and Biodiversity and Biological Control will meet jointly in Dijon, France. This will be followed by the workshop “Advances and Challenges in IAP and Weed Management: Ethical and Economic Perspective” in Nitra, Slovakia, on 29-31 October. November will be equally active. The Weed Genomics Training Course and Workshop will take place in Prague, Czech Republic, on 2-5 November, while the workshop “Next generation of sustainable herbicide use” will be held in Oeiras, Portugal, on 2-4 November. At the beginning of 2027, the EWRS Working Group Herbicide Resistance and GIRE will meet in Padova, Italy, on 27-29 January for a workshop dedicated to participatory approaches to tackling herbicide resistance, building on 30 years of Italian experience. Some more events are expected to be announced soon, so, stay updated: https://ewrs.org/en/info/Events
The diversity of these events-from biodiversity and biological control to invasive plants, genomics, sustainable herbicide use and herbicide resistance-reflects the breadth of our Society and the increasingly multidisciplinary nature of modern weed science. I strongly encourage our members, and particularly early-career researchers, to take advantage of these opportunities to present their work, exchange ideas and become actively involved in the EWRS community.
At the same time, we are rapidly approaching an important milestone in the preparations for the 21st EWRS Symposium, which will take place in Uppsala, Sweden, from 28 June to 2 July 2027, under the theme “System-Based Solutions to Sustainable Weed Management.” The submission of abstracts opens on 5 October 2026, with abstract submission possible until 31 December. I therefore encourage you to start preparing your contributions and to join us in shaping a broad, ambitious and forward-looking scientific programme.
Alongside this scientific activity, the organizational work of our Society continues actively behind the scenes. In November, we plan to visit Uppsala to meet with the Local Organizing Committee and work together on the preparations for the 2027 Symposium. This will be followed in December by meetings of the EWRS Executive Committee, Scientific Committee and Board in Athens, where we will review ongoing activities and priorities and plan the next steps for the Society. These meetings are an important part of ensuring that EWRS continues to develop in a coordinated, transparent and forward-looking way.
And while we prepare for Uppsala, we are already looking further ahead. EWRS has recently opened the call for proposals to host the 22nd EWRS Symposium in 2030. Members and institutions interested in hosting our Society's major scientific event are invited to submit a Letter of Intent by 1 May 2027. The successful venue will be announced during the closing session of the Uppsala Symposium. I warmly encourage interested teams to consider this opportunity to bring the EWRS community to their institution, city and country.
All these activities demonstrate that EWRS is much more than a symposium every few years. It is an active scientific community throughout the year, built around its members, Working Groups and the willingness to share knowledge and collaborate across disciplines, countries and generations.
I look forward to meeting many of you during our autumn activities and, of course, to receiving your contributions for Uppsala 2027. Let us continue working together to keep EWRS an open, dynamic and scientifically ambitious home for weed science in Europe and beyond.
With my best wishes,
Professor Ilias Travlos
President, EWRS
September 2026