At the start of October the Student Conference on Conservation Science (SCCS) - begun here in Zoology back in 2000 - was held for the second time in New York. The US event, hosted by the American Museum of Natural History in partnership with a consortium of east coast universities and conservation NGOs, included 400 delegates from over 30 countries.

SCCS-NY comes hot on the heels of last month's highly successful SCCS event in Bangalore. Also in its second year, the Indian conference was organised by Suhel Quader (formerly here in the Behavioural Ecology group), supported by leading Indian research institutes and NGOs, and funded in large part through a grant to Cambridge from ADM Capital Foundation. It brought together about 250 research students from across the region, who presented their work, heard from Indian and overseas plenary speakers (including Andrew Balmford), debated with politicians and journalists about the practical implementation of conservation, and got deluged by the tail-end of the south-west monsoon.

Meanwhile plans for the 13th Cambridge SCCS event - to be held here from 20 to 22 March 2012 - are well underway. The conference organizers have recently won a $500K grant from Arcadia for a five-year expansion of the conference's internship programme which enables developing country students not only to travel to the meeting but to attend a skills-based workshop afterwards and spend several weeks getting hands-on training in a university research group or NGO. The deadline for applications for talks, posters, places and bursary support is 31 October. Further details at www.sccs-cam.org.