Call for propositions for the 15th OPTIMA meeting

First planed to be held in Beirut, the 15th OPTIMA (Organization for the Phyto-Taxonomic Investigation of the Mediterranean Area) meeting will be held in Montpellier from the 6th to the 11th of June 2016. The first official circular is now in preparation and will be sent in a few days on the website http://optima2016.org

Symposium 12 (afternoon of the 10th of June 2016) concerns:
The role of the network of amateur botanists in the Mediterranean region and will contain 5 oral communications each 30 minutes long (including questions).

Talks can be given in French or English, the official languages of the meeting.
To make a proposition for this symposium please send an abstract of about one page before the 30th of November to my email address joel.mathez@univ-montp2.fr

The following themes can be treated:
– The contribution of amateur botanists to data collection on species presence in the field, to the creation of regional collections and documentation, and their participation in monitoring programmes.
– From botanical societies to botanical networks: contribution of modern technologies of information and communication.
– Data validation.
– Data diffusion.
– Continuous formation.
– …

The propositions will be submitted to a scientific committee and a final programme established in January 2016. For accepted propositions, a definitive title and abstract of the talk should be submitted by the end of February 2016.
The organizing committee will have some limited funding to help finance the participation of speakers coming from outside of France.

Montpellier, the 4th November 2015
Joël Mathez