Dear participant to the Ghent 2022 PLPR conference,
We are very grateful that you have submitted an abstract for the PLPR conference in Ghent, planned from 7-11 February 2022. All of you should have received a review report about your abstract last week. The enormous response to the call for abstracts – we have received almost 150 abstracts of good to excellent quality – shows the clear need for people to meet each other in person again, as we were (once) used to at this type of annual conferences.
However, since last week, the COVID-pandemic has won strength in Belgium and all over Europe. The number of infected people and the stress on health care have led to very strict COVID-regulations in public life and at universities until at least the end of January. That is why it will not come as a surprise to you that the local organizing committee and the ExCo of PLPR have decided that they cannot continue preparing the conference in these conditions.
Since a lot of preparatory work has already been done for the organization of the conference in February and the eagerness of people to participate, the local organizing committee and PLPR have very recently taken the decision to POSTPONE THE PLPR 2022 CONFERENCE IN GHENT TO THE WEEK OF 4-8 JULY 2022. We hope the summer time and the pandemic will allow for a physical conference in better conditions. As we already promised for the February conference, we will, if necessary, also in July look for possibilities of a limited online participation by people who cannot attend the conference due to travel restrictions. In other words, you can remove the blocked dates for the conference in February from your agendas and at the same time already block the week of 4-8 July.
We will contact you in early Spring to check whether or not you want to keep, revise or withdraw your already submitted abstract for the conference in July. It is not necessary at this moment to communicate about this with the local organizing committee.
Participants who already paid the conference fee can mail to plpr2022.arch@kuleuven.be to inform us whether or not they want a reimbursement of the fee or want to keep it for their participation in July.
We hope you and your beloved ones all keep safe and healthy.
Best regards,
The local organizing committee
