Nordic Region
About our Regional Secretary
Archives
Below, you can find information about past activites in the Nordic region of the ISAE.
2024
Regional Meeting 2024
The 30th regional meeting of the ISAE took place from the 6th to 7th of February in Ski, Norway. The meeting was organized by Marko Ocepek, Inger-Lise Andersen and Judit Vas from the Ethology and Welfare group at Faculty of Biosciences (NMBU).
Approximately 50 delegates participated in the meeting. There were 28 oral presentations and two keynote lectures, one by Liza R. Moscovice, Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN), Dummersdorf, Germany and one by Elodie Floriane Mandel-Briefer, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen. You may download the abstract booklet below.
2022
Regional Meeting 2022
The Nordic ISAE Winter Meeting 2022 was held at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden 26-28 January 2022. Lena Lidfors, Anna Lundberg, Therese Rehn, Anette Wichman, Elin Hirsch and Lena Skånberg organised the meeting. You may download the abstract booklet below.
2020
2020 Regional Meeting
On January 28th - 30th 2020, the Winter meeting of the ISAE Nordic branch took place at the Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu Estonia. David R. Arney, Maria Soonberg and Meelis Ots organised the meeting. You may download the abstract booklet below.
2018
2018 Regional Meeting
The Nordic ISAE Winter Meeting was held in Helsinki, Finland from 17-18 January 2018. Laura Hänninen and Anna Valros organised the meeting. You may download the abstract booklet below.
2016
Nordic ISAE Winter Symposium
20-22 January 2016
The 2016 Nordic Winter Symposium was held by researchers at the Department of Animal Science at Aarhus University from lunch on the 20th of January until lunch on the 22nd of January 2016.
Confirmed plenary talks
‘Applying research on mother-offspring behaviour to improve lamb survival’
Professor Cathy Dwyer, SRUC Scotland
‘Maternal transmission of behaviour’
Associate Professor Janne Winther Christensen, AU, Denmark
‘Social calves are smarter calves - the effects of maternal and other social influences on cognitive and behavioural development’
Professor Dan Weary, UBC, Canada
‘Does hospital pens match the special needs of diseased dairy cows?’
Senior Researcher Mette S. Herskin, AU, Denmark
PhD course 18-22 January 2016 in Denmark
In conjunction with the ISAE symposium, they organised a PhD course on Maternal and Neonatal Behaviour starting on the 18th of January and being part of the ISAE symposium ending on the 22nd of January.
Place: Vingsted Hotel and Conference Centre near Billund airport in Denmark
Organiser: Margit Bak Jensen, Aarhus University
2014
25th Nordic Symposium of the ISAE
2014, Oscarsborgs Fortress, Norway
Forty-one delegates participated in the 25th Nordic ISAE Regional Meeting, which was held 15-17 January, 2014 at Oscarsborg, Drøbak, Norway. The meeting was organized by Knut Egil Bøe, Bjarne Braastad and Ruth C. Newberry of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Ås. Delegates hailed from Norway (24), Finland (6), Sweden (6), and Denmark (5).
There were 22 regular oral presentations (20 minutes each) and 2 invited lectures (45 minutes each), one by Randi Oppermann Moe on “Behavioural and physiological expressions of cue-induced «wanting» in fowl” and one by Margit Bak Jensen on “Welfare of the dairy cow around the time of calving”. Themes of the different sessions were Housing environment, Behavioural development, Animal welfare, Motivation and emotions, Cow and calf behaviour, and Methods in applied ethology. The social programme comprised a guided tour of the historic Oscarsborg Fortress and Conference Dinner in the fortress.
A regional meeting was held, during which Lena Lidfors of Sweden was presented as the new Regional Secretary, taking over from Satu Raussi of Finland. Satu was thanked for her years of service in this role. Lena was elected based on an email poll of Nordic members held in the fall of 2013. There were 324€ left in the Nordic Regional fund for the Klaus Vestergaard Prize. It was decided that awarding the funds to the prize winner to defray costs of attending either the next Nordic Regional ISAE meeting, the international ISAE conference or any Nordic PhD course. Following the practice of rotating among the Nordic countries.
There were 12 students in the best oral presentation competition. The first place and Klaus Vestergaard Prize was awarded to Julie Føske Johnstone, Norwegian Veterinary Institute, for her paper on “Milk production, udder health and calving interval in dairy herds practicing suckling.” Second place went to Kristian Ellingsen, also of the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, who talked about “Determining the abomasal capacity of Norwegian Red calves.” In third place was Salla Ruuska of the University of Eastern Finland, who presented on “Reliability of instantaneous sampling in measuring feeding behaviour of dairy cows.” Ruth Newberry chaired the Judges Committee, which comprised Anna Valros, Lena Lidfors, Margit Bak Jensen, Laura Hänninen and Bjarne Braastad.
2012
24th Nordic Symposium of the ISAE
2012, Skara, Sweden
The Nordic winter Symposium of the ISAE was held at SLU Skara Sweden at 16th to 18th January 2012.
The symposium programme included four sessions and totally 22 presentations. The first session on Monday afternoon involved a plenary presented by professor Bo Algers from SLU. Bosse told us about transport to slaughter issues and specifically how logistics may benefit animal welfare. Another plenary was presented by Henrik Lerner from SLU who gave a speech about the role of the animal in the care of humans. We heard many talks about pig behaviour, human-animal studies and dog behaviour. At the end of the symposium workshop about authentic examinations and effects on learning were organised by Maria Andersson from SLU.
Every year the Klaus Vestergaard price is awarded to the best student presentation. This year the price went to Karolina Thorell. Karolina is a student at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Uppsala and the work she presented was from her master thesis project. Her presentation entitled “Pig behviour during crowding a study in organic and conventional herds”. The Klaus Vestergaard price includes free access to next Nordic ISAE symposium.
At the end of the symposium we had a small discussion about how to in furture develop the Nordic regional meetings. Some questions were raised should we continue to arrange Nordic symposiums every year or every second year and how to attract more senior researchers to the symposiums. Secreatary will compile a questionaire to be send to Nordic ISAE members about the subject.
Great thanks to the local organisers of the Nordic ISAE Skara symposium! Maria Andersson together with her team had organised everything extremely fluently. Friendly atmosphere made the symposium warm and encouraged discussions.
2011
23rd Nordic Symposium of the ISAE
2011, Tartu, Estonia
The 23rd Nordic winter symposium for applied ethology was arranged for the first time in Tartu, Estonia 19.-21.1.2011. Around 40 ethologists and experts in animal behavior shared their latest scientific results and discussed animal behavior and welfare in the member countries. Estonian and Lithuanian members were cordially welcomed to join the Nordic network of Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and now also Baltic ethologists.
News
Nordic ISAE enquiry 2013
An enquiry about the development of Nordic ISAE activities was realised in the beginning of 2013. 35 members responded to the enquiry. Great thanks for participation!
These were the most supported opinnions:
- The Nordic ISAE winter symposium should be organised either every year or every 2nd years
- January is good date for the Nordic ISAE symposium and two full days is preferred length
- Workshops, specific mini-seminars in connection to the symposium and more presentations from senior researchers are wished for the programme
- The symposium could maybe sometimes be organised together with another European region
- Meeting colleagues, networking and listening to talks are the most important reasons to participate to the Nordic ISAE symposium
- Symposium shoud be cheaper for ISAE members than for non-members
- More representation from Nordic Region in ISAE council is wanted
