Dear all, For the next Annual Meeting of the Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution taking place in Copenhagen from 28 June to 2 July 2026, we are organising a symposium on 'The role and responsibilities of the SMBE community in facing the polycrisis'. Anne Urai as our guest speaker will share her views on the academic system and potential ways to rethink and transform the norms of scientific practices to face the climate, ecological and political crises. We are looking forward to hearing more about other initiatives and actions in the community to foster an academic system just and sustainable for all, so don't hesitate to submit your abstract to our symposium: https://smbe2026.org/programme/ The abstract submission deadline is February 3 2026 and submitting an abstract to our symposium does not prevent you to submit another one to a second symposium. The organisers, Diego A. Hartasánchez, Fernando Racimo & Audrey Bras ---- L05 - The role and responsibilities of the SMBE community in facing the polycrisis Across our community, researchers are producing data and knowledge helping us understand patterns of adaptation and selection. This understanding is essential to allow for species and societal adaptations to the climate breakdown and to reverse the biodiversity crisis. Yet, we are not taking enough time to reflect on our own activities and practices while academia itself is also in crisis across many fronts. From the reproducibility crisis to the publishing crisis, from increasing labor precarity to decreasing funding and increasing pressure to produce ever larger amounts of outputs -all these factors are putting a strain on its members and affecting their ability to practice science. What is the role of us, molecular and evolutionary biologists, in the face of a distressed academic system and collapsing ecosystems? How can the SMBE community participate in transforming academia into an institution that contributes to a just and sustainable future for all? Academia is already an environment that can foster transformation through collective action: much research in academia is itself the result of collective work. Increasingly, collective action initiatives have been gaining traction: from alternatives to the current publishing system, to alternative university structures; from demands to make universities divest from fossil fuels, to direct action groups fighting for ecological justice. In this symposium we invite the SMBE community to share their work and views related to initiatives addressing the climate, biodiversity and academic crises, with a focus on transformation through collective action. Invited speaker: Anne E. Urai, Assistant Professor, Leiden University ----- Dr. Audrey Bras Postdoctoral researcher @AudreyBras@ecoevo.social audreyb061992@gmail.com audrey.bras@helsinki.fi "Bras, Audrey" (to subscribe/unsubscribe the EvolDir send mail to golding@mcmaster.ca)