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Description:

The UAB will be the scenario of the tenth edition of this conference, organised by the Botstiber Institute for Wildlife Fertility Control (BIWFC) in collaboration with the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.

The welcome session will be given by Javier Lafuente, rector of the UAB, Josep Maria López Martín, deputy director general of Fauna Cinegètica, Caça i Pesca Continental of the Government of Catalonia, and Monique Principi, director general of BIWFC.

The congress will once again bring together the international scientific and professional community in this specialised field to provide continuity to previous international forums dedicated to the control of wildlife fertility and the role that these strategies can play in mitigating conflicts between humans and wildlife.

With the title "Bridging the Gap: From Science to Management", the meeting aims to bring scientific research closer to practical management on the ground. Professionals from various disciplines will gather to share the latest advances in areas such as research and development of new strategies, improvement of existing methods, ongoing and completed field studies, identification and management systems, practical application case studies, the human dimension of wildlife management, stakeholder participation, scientific communication, and the social, regulatory and political challenges associated with this field.

The plenary session programme will feature the participation of four prominent international voices in the field of wildlife fertility control:

- Giovanna Massei, director of BIWFC in Europe and professor of Human Interactions with Wildlife at the University of York, United Kingdom, will present the paper "Too many? Wildlife fertility control in the future".

- Jordan Hampton, senior professor of Veterinary Physiology at the School of Veterinary Medicine Harry Butler Institute of Murdoch University, Australia, will offer the conference "Navigating contemporary animal welfare expectations in wildlife fertility control".

- Cameron Kovach, head of programmes at The Wildlife Society (TWS), will give the presentation "Transforming wildlife management: making space for new ideas".

- John Boone, research director of the Great Basin Bird Observatory, United States, will address the management of free-roaming cat populations with the session "Making the most of fertility control: Insights from free-roaming cat population management".

Attendance at the conference will allow participants to obtain up to 14.5 Category I continuing education credits (CEUs) within the Certified Wildlife Biologist title renewal and professional development programme, offered by The Wildlife Society, with the equivalence of one credit for each hour of training.

The fact that this conference is being held at the UAB consolidates the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine as an international reference space in research, knowledge transfer, and debate on the sustainable management of wildlife.

Congress programme

Place: Hotel Campus and Convention Centre, UAB Campus

Date: Thursday 23, April de 2026 - 08:15h

Date: Friday 24, April de 2026 - 17:30h

Promotor: Botstiber Institute for Wildlife Fertility Control (BIWFC) and Faculty of Veterinary Medicine

Description:

Gravitational waves (GWs) can be produced by a first-order phase transition in the early Universe via the fluid perturbations induced in the primordial plasma by the expansion and collision of broken-phase bubbles. Alberto Roper Pol, professor of the University of Geneva (Switzerland), will review the production of GWs by the anisotropic stresses of velocity and magnetic fields induced in a first-order phase transition and present recent developments on the analytical estimates and numerical simulations that address the stochastic GW background produced by acoustic motion (sound waves) and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence. These GWs could be detectable by current and future GW detectors like LISA or PTA, potentially providing us with direct clean information of the physics at the high energies of the early Universe and probing beyond the Standard Model physics. In addition, the presence of magnetic fields at a phase transition leads to coupled non-linear fluid perturbations, described by MHD turbulence, that will impact the cosmological GW background. The study of these effects can be used to put constraints on primordial magnetic fields. These fields would evolve until present time and leave observable imprints in, for example, the CMB and in the cosmic voids of the large-scale structure of the Universe, allowing us to combine GW observations with other cosmological and astrophysical observations in a multi-messenger approach.

You can access the full event here: https://indico.ifae.es/event/2434

Place: IFAE Seminar Room C7b/064

Date: Thursday 23, April de 2026 - 12:00h

Description:

The REAL-Postgrowth project (Post-growth – REAL – A Post-Growth Deal) is excited to announce that Richard York and Stefano B. Longo will present a public talk as part of our monthly public seminar series.

Seminar: "Environmental sociology, ecological crisis & degrowth" 

Speakers: Richard York, University of Oregon, & Stefano B. Longo, University of Gothenburg.

• Date: Tuesday, April 28th, 2026
• Time:  12 -13h (CET)
• Venue: Sala Z/032 ICTA-UAB and online: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89902459669?pwd=3mnkCJeyZ6o60nIIAXHHJNsh1qPZ5k.1

What social structures drive societies beyond planetary boundaries? Drawing on York’s analyses of energy, pollution, and technological displacement and Longo’s work on global development, food systems, and critical sustainability science, this talk examines the growth-dependent political economies that lock modern societies into ecological overshoot. It argues that contemporary provisioning systems reproduce unsustainable resource use and unequal exchange, obstruct just North–South convergence, and help explain why techno-fixes and mainstream sustainability approaches so often fall short. Bringing environmental sociology into dialogue with degrowth and post-growth scholarship, the talk examines the structural and political-economic drivers of ecological change and the constraints they place on more just and ecologically viable forms of social provisioning. 

Richard York is Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon. An environmental sociologist working at the intersection of human ecology and political economy, he studies how the structural characteristics of modern societies shape energy use, resource consumption, and pollution, and has been especially influential in showing the limits of technological substitution as a sustainability strategy.

Stefano B. Longo is Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Gothenburg. His research examines global development, agri-food and marine systems, and the social drivers of ecological change, while also advancing a more sociologically grounded sustainability science attentive to power, historical specificity, and just transitions.

Date: Tuesday 28, April de 2026 - 12:00h

Description:

TANC The Apocalypse is Not Coming conference is a transdisciplinary meeting that brings together researchers, artists, activists, and professionals to reflect collectively on apocalyptic imagery and its implications in the context of contemporary crises. Rather than considering the apocalypse to be an inevitable fate, the conference is based on the idea that it is a social construct that influences how we interpret and address current ecological, technological and geopolitical challenges.

Spanning four days, the programme combines scientific sessions, workshops, artistic interventions and collaborative debate spaces to explore regenerative alternatives to 'end of the world' narratives. The conference promotes dialogue between diverse disciplines and practices, from ecofeminism and environmental justice to the arts, ecological spirituality and participatory technologies, with the aim of rethinking imaginaries, generating new collaborations, and paving the way for more just and sustainable futures.

Place: UAB Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Date: Tuesday 12, May de 2026 - 09:30h

Date: Friday 15, May de 2026 - 19:30h

Promotor: UAB