The yearly tradition of organizing the Benelux Congress of Zoology continues. Spanning a total of already 16 years, the disciplines and focuses of zoological research have changed substantially. New methodologies have become extremely powerful to go where scientists have never gone before. With that, shifts have occurred in the trends of which approaches and disciplines are ‘popular’ and stimulated financially. After 17 years, it will be a good occasion to re-appreciate the classic disciplines that may be threatened to be forgotten and overlooked, because being considered as conservative and old-fashioned. Just as organisms have evolved, so have many of those classic disciplines. The 17th Benelux Congress of Zoology will provide the perfect forum to revive these disciplines with excellent plenary talks, which demonstrate that classic biology still exists in modern times and in no way is comparable to that of the ‘good old days’. Moreover, the development of new scientific insights in zoology largely depends on these classic, under-appreciated disciplines.
The congress will take place at the campus Ledeganck of the Ghent University, near the historical town centre. This not only provides the perfect environment for a sparkling intellectual atmosphere for scientific minds, but also forms a nice setting of a historical (classic) scenery. We hope to welcome you and your students this fall.
Dominique Adriaens (bcz2010@Ugent.be),
in name of the organizing and scientific comittee and the Royal Belgian Zoological Society
