The YSM conference provides an opportunity to present your current research in the form of a poster or talk. However, you can also participate without making a contribution. A jury of experienced JKI scientists will evaluate all talks and posters, and the best ones will receive an award at the end of the conference.
If you decide to present a poster or give a talk, please follow the guidelines for talks and posters.
In addition to your contributions, there will be many other interesting events at YSM 2026:
Keynotes
“How bees see flowers – information, manipulation & imitation”
(Prof. Dr. Klaus Lunau, former head of the Institute of Sensory Ecology at the Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf)
Bees are sensitive to ultraviolet, but insensitive to red light. To learn how bees see flowers and how flowers communicate with bees thus requires a translation of flower colours and floral colour patterns from human to bee colour vision. Colour choice experiments, false colour photography in bee view and modelling the bees' colour vision improves ourunderstanding of the innate and learnt colour preferences in selected bee species and flowers' colour signalling strategies in pollinator communities.
“Impact of aridity on specialized metabolism: Increase in concentration of natural products in plants as response to drought stress”
(Prof. Dr. Dirk Selmar, Institute of Plant Biology, TU Braunschweig)
Spice and medicinal plants grown in semi-arid regions generally have significantly higher concentrations of relevant natural products than the identical plants cultivated in moderate climates. When thoroughly analyzing this phenomenon, it turned out that simple explanations, such as “These plants have seen much more sun” do not apply at all. The talk will outline that in plants suffering drought stress, the biosynthesis of highly reduced specialized metabolites such as terpenes, alkaloids, or phenols are boosted. When scrutinising this coherence, it becomes evident that various putative verities in plant biology have to be exposed as a myth.
JKI tour
On a JKI tour, staff from the JKI Braunschweig will show you their current research in the labs and greenhouse chambers of the institutes AT, A, EP and G.
Warm-up and cool-down
There will also be plenty of opportunities to network and exchange ideas this year, e. g. during our icebreaker, the warm-ups, several games, a city tour through Braunschweig, during a dinner at a favoured Braunschweig restaurant or while playing blacklight minigolf. Let us surprise you! :-)
Please register to attend the YSM Conference!
Submit your abstract
If you would like to present a talk or poster, please submit an abstract by 25 September 2026. Please register first and then log in to submit your abstract.
Guidelines for talks and posters
Guidelines for your talk
- During the YSM conference there will be 7 sessions with 4–5 10-minute talks each. Please note that your presentation will be strictly timed and you will be stopped at 10 minutes.
- Your talk should have a clear structure, not overloaded slides, and a presentation style that is audience oriented. Please keep in mind that there will be experts from various fields in the audience who will be happy if you present your topic in a way that is understandable to non-specialists (see evaluation criteria below).
- Please use one of the pptx templates provided below to prepare your slides.
- If you want your slides to be published on the repository OpenAgrar, please read the notes about publishing your slides below.
- Please upload your slides until 13 November by logging in on the YSM website.
Guidelines for your poster
- Posters will be displayed in two poster sessions and you will have the opportunity to explain your research and answer questions in a relaxed atmosphere (see evaluation criteria below).
- Please use one of the pptx templates below to prepare your poster.
- If you want your poster to be published on the repository OpenAgrar, please read the notes about publishing your poster below.
- If you would like to have your poster printed and sent to Braunschweig, please upload your poster pptx file until 16 October by logging in on the YSM website.
Evaluation criteria and awards
As in previous years, all talks and posters of the conference will be evaluated by a jury consisting of experienced researchers from the JKI.
The jury evaluates the talks concerning the presentation itself (e.g. simplicity appropriate for audience, research problem clearly stated or conclusions to point), visual aids, performance and the adherence to the time limit of 10 minutes.
Posters will be judged on design and layout, clarity of content and message as well as quality of graphs, figures and data presented.
In addition to the jury's evaluation, YSM participants will vote for their favourite contribution, which will receive an audience award.
The certificates will be presented to the award winners on the last day of the conference.
Notes about publishing your slides or poster
A publication of your slides or poster in the OpenAgrar repository is accompanied by licensing the work with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. With this license, your work can be shared and adapted if appropriate credit is given by providing your (author) name. Furthermore, your poster or slides will obtain a digital object identifier (DOI) making your work permanently findable and citable.
Please be aware of using only images for which you have the usage rights or that are licensed accordingly. Databases with licensed or public domain images are Search Creative Commons, Pixabay or Freeimages.