The Society has biennial meetings (in odd years) as well as off-year workshops (in even years), and offers student travel support for both types of events.
Biennial Meetings
The biennial gathering of the ISHPSSB is its main raison d'être: The Society was founded with the aim of organising a conference bringing together current research on biology as a discipline. In the year before a general meeting, bids are sought for hosting the next edition, and the Site Selection Committee announces the winning bid during the General Assembly of the Meeting.
Scroll further down, for the archival articles on previous meetings.
ISHPSSB 2027 Buenos Aires
The next Ishkabibble will take place in Buenos Aires, in the hands of Program Co-chairs Maria Elice de Brzezinski Prestes and Yafeng Shan, and Pablo Lorenzano with his team of local organizers.
Off-Year Workshops
Given the two-year ISHPSSB cycle, in even-numbered years a small number of events may carry the ISHPSSB name. The general parameters of, and how to submit proposals for, such events are detailed in the article on the Off-year Workshop Committee. The deadline for such proposals usually falls before Christmas following each biennial Meeting.
Given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, workshops (just like the 2022 deadline) may have to adapt or be postponed, as happened in the previous cycle; so be sure to check the listed websites for any relevant updates. A thank you goes out to all of the organizing committees for their hard and creative work, and to the members of the ISHPSSB off-year workshop committee for evaluating the proposals.
Scroll down for the archive of past Off-Year Workshops.
The 2026 Call for Proposals can be found here. There is a given deadline for funded workshops, but after that unfunded ones are still accepted on a rolling basis.
Matt Haber (chair), on behalf of the ISHPSSB Off-Year Workshop Committee
Meetings archive
The ISHPSSB held its inaugural meeting on 21–25 June 1989 at the University of Western Ontario. Although meetings were envisaged to be annual (see the bylaws), by 1997 biennial meetings were sufficiently established to amend the bylaws to reflect this.
In 2001, the ISHPSSB Council approved the idea of sponsoring Off-Year Workshops or Conferences, and in 2004 student members proposed and organised the very first of these.
Below is all accessible data from past meetings. If you have (more detailed, preferably HTML) programmes not provided there, please contact
Past Biennial Meetings
- ISHPSSB 2025: Porto
- ISHPSSB 2023: Toronto, Canada
- ISHPSSB Cold Spring Harbour (Virtual) 13–20 July 2021
- ISHPSSB Oslo 2019 travel grants
- ISHPSSB Oslo 7–12 July 2019
- ISHPSSB 2017 Meeting: July 16–21 in São Paulo, Brazil
- ISHPSSB 2015 Bulletin Boards
- ISHPSSB 2013 Montpellier Programme
- ISHPSSB 2011 Salt Lake City Programme
- ISHPSSB 2009 Brisbane Programme
- ISHPSSB 2007 Exeter Programme, Session Abstracts and Abstracts
- ISHPSSB 2005 Guelph Programme, Session Abstracts and Abstracts
- ISHPSSB 2003 Vienna Programme and Abstracts
- ISHPSSB 2003 Vienna Programme, Session Abstracts and Abstracts
- ISHPSSB 2001 Quinnipiac Session Abstracts and Programme
- ISHPSSB 1999 Oaxaca Programme
- ISHPSSB 1997 Seattle Meeting Session Abstracts
- ISHPSSB 1995 Leuven Meeting Session Abstracts
Off-year workshops from past cycles
Student Travel Support
ISHPSSB supports graduate student participation in our biennial meetings as well as off-year workshops. The Travel Support Committee administers ISHPSSB Travel Awards, which are currently funded by ISHPSSB and, for US citizens and students at US institutions, by the NSF via a grant to the 8 Societies. Any donations to the ISHPSSB travel fund are gratefully received by the next generation of scholars of biology!
The society has the financial means to support only a portion of students' travel costs. Travel costs include transportation expenses such as airfare, gas or mileage, but do not include other types of expenses such as conference registration, lodging and meals. Award amounts will depend on the total amount of funding available to ISHPSSB, the relative cost of travel between the students' locations and conference site, and the ability of applicants to access additional resources. For recent previous meetings, award amounts ranged from US$50 to US$1000, and averaged about US$300. This represented one-half to two-thirds of travel costs that remained for students once their institutional funds had been applied.