Each year a MARES Annual Meeting is organized in early February, as part of the MARES Training Programme. At this meeting all PhD candidates enrolled in the MARES doctoral programme & training programme come together at one central location for a meeting of one week. This usually coincides with the MARES Scientific Board & Management Board Meetings and as such offers the opportunity for MARES researchers and board member to meet and get to know each other. 

This Annual Meeting is an integral part of the training component of MARES. Participation in all activities of this event will be awarded with 5 ECTS in the transferable skills category for the purpose of the MARES Joint Doctoral Training Programme. Once a researcher has participated in the minimum of two annual meetings, the minimum of 10 ECTS in the transferable skills category will already have been reached. 

On this meeting a series of activities are organized:

• Networking opportunities
• Dedicated Training courses
• Excursions
• Presentations of ongoing PhD work

The meeting will also allow the MARES Boards to get a view on the status of each ongoing PhD.

Costs for participation in this meeting are covered by the bench fees in case the candidate has an Erasmus Mundus PhD grant.

Note that a MARES PhD candidate has to participate in at least 2 annual meetings in order to fulfil the MARES requirements. New PhD candidates have to be present at the first meeting. 

More information on our previous Annual Meetings are to be found in our Documents/Publications section. Read more on the First Meeting in Ghent, Belgium (2012),  Second Meeting in Faro, Portugal (2013), Third Meeting in Palanga, Lithuania (2014), Fourth Meeting in Ispra, Italy (2015) and the Fifth Meeting in Olhão, Portugal (2016) which took take place together with the Second International MARES Conference. Our Sixth Annual Meeting will take place in Gdynia, Poland during the third week of February 2017.