Here we interview Professor Janine Kavanagh (University of Liverpool) on the experience of organising the first international conference on Volcanic and Igneous Plumbing Systems (VIPS). The conference was held on the 18-20th June 2024 at the University of Liverpool, hosted by the Liverpool MAGMA Lab.
Read all about the conference in our blog post here.
Please could you introduce yourself and the Liverpool local organising committee
My name is Janine Kavanagh and I’m Professor of Volcanology at the University of Liverpool, a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and leader of the MAGMA Lab. I was lead organiser for the first international conference of the IAVCEI Commission on VIPS and was fortunate to have fantastic support from our local organising team: Lecturer in Igneous Petrology Dr. Katy Chamberlain, MAGMA Lab postdocs Dr. Caitlin Chalk and Dr. Stefano Urbani, MAGMA Lab Research Technician Amanda Valentine-Baars, and four PhD researchers I supervise: Kate Williams, Tegan Havard, Jade Hrintchuk and Dawid Rybak.
Before the first VIPS conference, have you ever taken a leading role in organising conferences?
Yes, although nothing quite like the scale of the VIPS conference! When I first joined the University of Liverpool as a lecturer back in 2013, there was a regional conference called the ‘Volcanologists and Igneous Petrologists’ meeting (another VIP!) for northern England and Scottish researchers in volcanology. I volunteered to run this and we had ~50 academics and PhD students come to Liverpool for a one-day session filled with short talks. Then in 2017 I was part of the local organising committee for the ‘Joint Assembly’ which was a joint national meeting of the Volcanic and Magmatic Studies Group (VMSG), Tectonic Studies Group (TSG) and British Geophysical Association (BGA) held at the University of Liverpool. This was a much larger event spread over two and a half days, with a few hundred delegates and up to three parallel sessions and a daily poster session.
Several years later, as Secretary for the Volcanic and Magmatic Studies Group (VMSG) in January 2021 I co-organised the first virtual conference of the VMSG during the Covid lockdowns. Although the VMSG is a UK and Ireland group, the virtual nature of this event led to an international audience of a few hundred delegates. Around this time I also became the academic lead for the Herdman Symposium, which is an annual one-day meeting of geoscientists led by our undergraduate Earth Sciences Society, the Herdman Society which bring ~200 students, alumni and regional geoscience enthusiasts to Liverpool for a day of geoscience seminars. So overall I have been involved in leading or supporting the organisation of research conferences for about 12 years now. The first international conference on VIPS was my first time leading an international hybrid conference.
What did you and your team do to organize the conference?
Gosh, where to start… Well I soon realised this was not something I could do alone, and so I gathered together my fantastic local organising team and tried to get them on board with the idea and excited about doing this together. We met to discuss what we wanted to do, and what we felt able to deliver, and then after a few iterations we came up with a skeleton of a plan for the conference. We then discussed roles that were needed to make sure we had good oversight and that all avenues were covered. We then allocated sub-groups and roles for individuals, and agreed on a rough timetable to meet and discuss progress. I feel like this was a really important part of the process. I was feeling quite overwhelmed by the idea of organising the conference, but bringing in others and developing the ideas together made it much more enjoyable and manageable. I also think it made us stronger as a team and something everyone in the group could get involved with.
What did you enjoy the most?
I loved hearing about all the new science being done in our field, and it was wonderful to see lively and inclusive exchanges during the round-table discussions. It felt really good to play a leading role bringing together a group of people from around the world who are working across different disciplines but all focused on volcanic plumbing systems, and to help to strengthen this community which the VIPS Commission has built over the past decade. I was also really pleased to be able to lead by example in fostering an open and inclusive culture within meetings and support our early career researchers.
I also really enjoyed seeing members of my own research group flourish academically and felt so proud of them giving their presentations and chairing sessions, particularly knowing how nervous some of them were.
What were some unexpected challenges you encountered and how did you tackle them?
Well, there were some last-minute logistical issues with the conference meal which nearly gave me heart failure.. but again this was where our fantastic team came into its own, and everything was sorted with minimal disruption, and later laughed about over a large glass of Sauvignon blanc (other non-alcoholic beverages also available!).
Do you have any tips or learning experiences to pass on to other researchers wishing to take on planning a conference?
I would say start organising early (you need to start thinking about it a year in advance!) and get your team on board as soon as you. You also need to let all the potential delegates know about dates and prices far in advance (more than six months ideally) so they have time to apply for funding to come – some bursaries are only available once or twice per year. Sponsorship can be a fantastic way to bring in industry too and get them enthused about your research themes.
Would you do it again?
Ha! Well I am reluctant to say yes, because I fear being flooded with requests, and I find it very difficult to say no! But it is a yes, just perhaps not for a few years 😉
The IAVCEI VIPS Commission are delighted to announce we will be hosting our second international VIPS conference in late 2026 at the Nevados de Chillan volcano in Chile!
Make sure to follow our website and social media channels for updates.
Would you like to be featured on our blog?
We’re on the hunt for fellow VIPS enthusiasts to share their stories, whether you’re a student, an early career researcher (ECR) or more experienced researcher – we want to hear from you!
Do you have a new paper to tell the world about? Or have you been involved in some exciting fieldwork recently? Get in touch at info@vipscommission.org to tell us what’s going on in your field of VIPS.
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