ETN Symposium

This year, the ETN Symposium will be held at B!NGS Copenhagen 13-15 October 2026. You're invited to join us for three days of exciting tracking science, in-depth conversations on where to go next, and networking with some of the world's best tracking scientists. One day will be dedicated to recounting tales of the STRAITS project, and we're excited to tell you about the waves this project has made. In addition, this year, the symposium has organized six thematic sessions (see below) to which you can submit for a presentation and/or poster. Your talk doesn't quite fit into these sessions? No worries, we have an "Open tracking session" as well. 

Register here! Deadline for registration is 31 May 2026.

Submit an abstract here! Deadline for abstract submission is 30 April 2026.

Session 1: Little do we know: tracking unknown and overlooked species

Our aquatic ecosystems are so diverse, yet so little is known about so many species. Be it for lack of funding or lack of interest, some species have just been overlooked. It’s time we give them the spotlight.

Organiser(s): KIm Birnie-Gauvin

Session 2: Tracking rays and skates across European waters

Rays and skates are among the most emblematic fish groups. While many species are currently classified as threatened, others remain commercially important and subject to conservation or management measures. Despite their ecological relevance, rays and skates have long been underrepresented in telemetry research. This session aims to showcase current tracking studies across Europe, highlighting the diversity of species, environments, methodologies, and emerging insights into their spatial ecology and behaviour.

Organiser(s): David Abecasis & David Villegas-Rios

Session 3: Novel methods, techniques and interoperability in acoustic telemetry

This session invites communications presenting novel methods, techniques and technological advances that enhance the extraction of biological information from acoustic telemetry data. We particularly welcome contributions addressing the analysis of large and heterogeneous datasets, the transformation of detections or presence–absence data into meaningful temporal and spatial traits, behavioural segmentation and inference (including AI-based approaches), advances in hardware and software, and issues of interoperability, including the performance, limitations and implementation of the ETN Open Protocol. The session aims to foster cross-system methodological innovation and promote scalable, reproducible and interoperable solutions for next-generation acoustic telemetry research.

Organiser(s): Josep Alos

Session 4: Regional-scale, rare and pilot acoustic tracking in applied research

Large-scale telemetry networks are built upon the success of local and regional initiatives, which often generate unique and hard-won datasets that are critical for applied research but remain unpublished or confined to grey literature due to limited sample sizes, logistical constraints or the exploratory nature of the work. This session invites contributions presenting regional-scale, rare or pilot acoustic tracking studies that provide valuable ecological, methodological or management insights despite inherent limitations in replication or statistical power. We particularly encourage communications on tracking experiments in deep or remote environments, pelagic and open-water systems, highly anthropogenic or risk-prone habitats, critical or poorly accessible habitats, and studies on rare or endangered species, as well as pilot deployments testing novel environments or approaches. 

Organiser(s): Josep Alos

Session 5: From data to Digital Twins: pipelines, centralisation and more

Digital Twin (DT) frameworks have truly taken off in the last few years. DTs were originally not developed for the purposes of "twinning" animal movement, and yet we know that these movements are key biological variables for ecosystems. We also know that building these DTs based on animal movements requires data centralisation, pipelines, and so much more. This session invites contributions on everything related to Digital Twins within the context of animal movement.

Organiser(s): Pieterjan Verhelst & Jan Reubens

Session 6: From insights to impact: how telemetry results find their way into policy

Ensuring that valuable insights from telemetry find their way into policy can be a long and windy road. Many tracking projects aspire to contribute their results to decision making processes either through data integration into existing databases and ecological models, or through insight communication via management collaboration and policy briefs. Results from these efforts are not often shared or discussed while they are highly relevant for the tracking community to support uptake. This session welcomes communications presenting their experiences on integration and communication of insights from telemetry studies to support policy decisions. By sharing both successful and less successful experiences, challenges and lessons learned, this session aims to open up new roads within ETN for researcher and telemetry results to find their way into the decision-making processes.

Organiser(s): Inge van der Knaap