LS² Annual Meeting 2021

General Terms and Conditions

The LS² Annual Meeting 2021 is organized by Life Sciences Switzerland (LS²). The main office of Life Sciences Switzerland is located at the House of Academies, Laupenstrasse 7, 3001 Bern, while the billing address is at the University of Zurich, Institute of Molecular Life Sciences, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zurich.

The conference and all its special sessions will take place ONLINE 17-19th of February 2021. Participants must register from October 20, 2020 onwards via the LS² website. Upon registration and payment, each participant will receive an electronic confirmation. If a participant has not received the official registration confirmation within 3 days after his/her payment, he/she must contact the conference organization office at info@ls2.ch.

Registration fees are indicated on: https://annual-meeting.ls2.ch/registration. Registration will be effective only after full payment by the participant. The prices indicated are per person and are only applicable if the registration form and the payment are received before the mentioned deadlines. Registration (without abstract submission) and payment are possible until January 29th, 2021.

The conference fees comprise exclusively: The conference fees include include access to all of the plenary talks, online group discussions (under registration in one group), workshop (under registration), e-symposia, e-posters and exhibition area and help us cover our costs to run the event. The fee also includes the access to the platform until a month after the meeting.

Other Provisions
. Payments for registration have to be settled and all prices are quoted in Swiss Francs (CHF). Payment in any other currency will not be accepted. Registrations received without payment will not be processed and confirmed. Registration will be confirmed by means of the confirmation of payment, which will be sent upon receipt of the registration fee by e-mail. In order to benefit from the early registration fee, all payments must be received within the mentioned deadlines. Submission of the registration form without payment within deadlines does not entitle to benefit of the reduced fee at a later date. Admittance to the conference without full registration including payment of the registration fee cannot be granted.

Payment Options
: Upon registration on the conference website, the participant can select one of the following payment options:
1. Online via the LS² Annual Meeting website:
Registration on the website will allow participants to pay via the online payment system Stripe using a credit card (Master Card, Visa Card). Advance payment is highly recommended since this will considerably accelerate your registration procedure upon your arrival.
2. By payment slip or bank transfer:
The bank transfer must clearly state the name of the participant and “LS² AM 2021”.
Unidentified bank transfers cannot be processed. Bank charges have to be paid at the source by the participant, in addition to the registration fee. The bank transfer option will not be available anymore after February 7, 2021 (bank transfer and confirmation of payment might not arrive on time). 
Conference payments should be transferred to:
Account holder: 
Life Sciences Switzerland
Universität Zürich
IMLS
Winterthurerstrasse 190
8057 Zürich
Account details:
UBS Zürich
IBAN: CH85 0027 9279 C056 4732 1
BIC: UBSWCHZH80A

Conference Attendance
Between 10 and 5 days before the conference, participants will receive a link (personalized) to access the virtual platform from where they will be able to access the different sessions.  

Access to all live talks will be through Zoom. We suggest you download the Zoom App (https://zoom.us/download) as it is more reliable and stable than the web browser.

Access to e-poster's rooms will be through jitsi. See information here about this platform: https://jitsi.org/about/

There will be a chat functionality within the virtual platform and different channels will be created for networking, Q&A, scientific topics...

Time zone
The programme is planned based on Central European Time (CET), unless otherwise stated. As many virtual participants are attending from around the world, we do our best to accomodate as many timezones as possible when creating the programme. Please take your time zone into consideration when planning your attendance.

Cancellation Conditions. LS² reserves the right to cancel any registration immediately and without liability in the event of damage or problems to the virtual platform not related to the contractual liability of LS² with the management company of said platform due to labour shortages, strikes, industrial disturbances or any other cause beyond the control of LS², which will prevent it from fulfilling its obligations. In these circumstances, every effort will be made to find an alternative or propose a new date for the conference. In the event that the conference is cancelled for any reason, any expenses that participants may have incurred in order to attend will not be reimbursed by LS².

Any participant is allowed to cancel his/her registration, but must notify to the conference organizers by e-mail: info@ls2.ch.

Should the participant cancel the conference, a cancellation fee of the initial invoice will be applied as follows:
From December 21, 2020 until 30 days before the event (until January 12, 2021): 25%. 
Between 30 and 14 days before the event (until January 31, 2021): 50%. 
Less than 14 days before the event (from February 3, 2021): 100%.

Name Change
. All registrations are only valid for the respective person mentioned in the form. A registered participant unable to attend the conference may nominate (free of charge) a substitute participant by notifying in writing the conference organizers by email at info@ls2.ch before January 1, 2021. The procedure allows giving the last name, first name, and email address of the new participant. However, we cannot change the invoice or make any other changes.

Personal Data. Upon registration, the participant authorizes LS² to use his/her personal data stated above to inform the participant of any further conferences, events, or information concerning the conference. Personal data such as Name, Affiliation, Function and Membership will be used for statistical analyses. Only Name, Surname and e-mail will be used to create the links to access the virtual platform which is created exclusively for this conference. These data will be treated confidentially and will not be transferred to any third parties. The conference booklet online on LS² website will only contain authors, titles and affiliations of submitted abstracts, but no full abstract texts. On the virtual platform, the abstract of e-poster will be shown only of those participants who allowed that, and this will be visible only to registered participants. Conference certificates will be sent to all participants (not to sponsors/exhibitors) at once as one PDF document. Only the name & affiliation will be stated in this confirmation, not the email addresses of the participants.
Information is collected by an automated computer system which permits to manage registrations. Personal information is exclusively used by LS² for registration management. Security and confidentiality are guaranteed by state-of-the-art technical tools. However, LS² declines any responsibility concerning data security transmitted through the internet. In accordance with the Swiss law, LS² does not collect any bank details such as the identity number of the credit/debit card, bank address and any other information. The online payment system is managed by Bexio (bexio.com) and Stripe (stripe.com). 
To enhance our user’s privacy, we decided to end the collaboration with Google Analytics per 15 June 2018.
We started using Matomo instead and will from 16 June 2018 only use this platform to analyze traffic and help us to improve your user experience. Since we use a self-hosted Matomo setup on our webserver, no usage information is forwarded to any third party. We have configured Matomo to anonymize IP addresses and respect the "Do Not Track" setting of visitor's browsers. From their website: "Matomo (formerly Piwik) is an open analytics platform currently used by individuals, companies and governments all over the world. With Matomo, your data will always be yours."

Photography. The conference is held virtual, therefore even if during the guides of conduct we encourage the respect to the scientific data, we can not avoid that participants, exhibitors, partners and other companies take screeshots during the meeting. By participating in the conference, you approve that general pictures (screenshots of audience) will be taken and used for our Social Media output and our websites (LS² will never public scientific data). You hereby waive any right to oppose, and expressly authorize the organizer make them available on the Internet or as it may seem fit. Taking pictures of posters is only allowed with the permission of the first author and otherwise strictly forbidden!

Disclaimer
. The conference organizer cannot be held responsible for any loss, injury or damage to any property, whatever the cause may be. Liability of persons and enterprises providing means of transportation or other services, however, remains unaffected. Should, for any reason outside the organizer’s control (e.g. political or economic circumstances or a case of ‘force majeure’), the platform or speakers change, or the event be cancelled, the organizer will endeavor to reschedule, but shall not be held responsible for any costs, damages or expenses incurred by the participants. If for any reason the organizer decides to make material changes to this conference, the organizer is not responsible for airfares, hotels or other costs incurred by the participants. The participant takes part in the conference, all tours and trips at his own risk.

Copyright
. The participant is allowed to use the conference documentation exclusively for his/her personal needs.