Meetings

Now in its 28th year, the European Congress of Endocrinology (ECE) 2026 commences on Saturday 9 May and runs until Tuesday 12 May. The Congress will bring together endocrine specialists from across Europe and the rest of the world to meet, collaborate and celebrate endocrinology at the Prague Congress Centre in Prague, Czech Republic. This year’s Congress will also celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the European Society of Endocrinology (ESE) since the formation of the Society in 2006. 

The School of Governance and Policy (SGP) at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) concluded its three-day Inaugural Week on 29 April, marking the launch of a premier intellectual hub dedicated to navigating the most complex regional and international governance challenges of our time. The landmark event convened world-renowned scholars including a 2024 Nobel Laureate, former heads of government, and industry pioneers, drawing over 900 attendees to the HKU campus.

A research team from the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) will participate in China’s planetary exploration mission, Tianwen-3. According to the selection results released by the China National Space Administration recently, the “Short-Wavelength Infrared Spectrometer”, led and developed by HKU, has been officially chosen as a payload for deployment on the service module of the Tianwen-3 mission. The instrument will play a critical role in forecasting dust storms during landing manoeuvres, searching for biosignatures, detecting hydrous minerals, and surveying Martian resources.

The 10th HKU Quarterly Forum on Chinese Economy, hosted by HKU Business School’s Institute of China Economy (ICE), in partnership with the Zhejiang University Alumni Association (Hong Kong), was held on Thursday, 23 April 2026, at HKU iCube in Central, Hong Kong.

The Faculty of Education at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) and the London Ball Foundation co-hosted the Education Summit 2026, themed “Artificial Intelligence & Cross-Cultural Intelligence”, on April 19 at Loke Yew Hall, HKU. The Summit brought together distinguished speakers and more than 400 participants, including academics, policymakers, educators, and students, for in-depth discussions on the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) for education and the importance of cross-cultural understanding.

The 23rd Carbon Research International Forum, held online on April 24, 2026, brought together researchers and professionals to explore how engineered biochar can support carbon capture, resource recovery, and sustainable industrial development. The recorded session has now been uploaded to YouTube, making the forum available to a wider international audience interested in low-carbon technologies and circular economy solutions.

Graduate students from across the Southeast gathered at Auburn University for the 8th Southern Physics and Astronomy Graduate Student Symposium, a fully student-led event. Organized by the Auburn Physics Graduate Student Association, the symposium featured nearly 90 participants and 45 research presentations. Students presented work across physics and astronomy fields while building regional collaborations with peers from multiple universities. The event also included leadership workshops and tours of Auburn’s research facilities.
Next year’s symposium will be hosted by Mississippi State University.

"Ultra-Processed Food and Health: From Mechanisms to Actions” brought together many of the world’s leading experts to examine one of the most pressing topics in nutrition science.

The symposium convened an international group of researchers, clinicians and policy experts to explore the rapidly evolving science surrounding ultra-processed foods and their impact on human health. Discussions spanned the biological mechanisms linking ultra-processed foods to chronic disease, the gaps in available research, the role of the food environment and industry practices, and opportunities for policy and public health action.

Insilico Medicine announced that its research paper, “When Single Answer Is Not Enough: Rethinking Single-Step Retrosynthesis Benchmarks for LLMs,” has been accepted for presentation at the International Conference on Machine Learning 2026. The study challenges conventional retrosynthesis benchmarking approaches that rely on single “ground-truth” answers and Top-K accuracy metrics, which may not reflect the multi-solution nature of real-world chemistry.

The paper introduces ChemCensor, a chemistry-aware evaluation metric designed to assess model performance based on reaction centers and functional groups, aligning more closely with expert human reasoning. Additional contributions include the CREED dataset, comprising 6.4 million validated reactions; benchmarking results from the C3LM model; and the URSA-expert-2026 dataset, an expert-annotated benchmark designed to reduce data leakage and improve evaluation rigor.

The research supports the development of more realistic and scalable training and evaluation frameworks for AI-driven retrosynthesis and drug discovery. Supporting materials will be made publicly available to promote transparency and reproducibility.

Targeting Phage Therapy 2026 will convene international leaders to accelerate clinical deployment, highlight innovation, and recognize excellence through the Targeting Phage Therapy Awards.