The Michael Sars guest seminar series
The guest seminar series welcomes local, national and international speakers who present their work across a broad spectrum of research topics in biology. The series runs throughout the semester, with one invited speaker at a time and a host from one of the research groups at the Centre.
The seminars are open and you do not need to register. If you want to be notified about upcoming seminars, or suggest a speaker, get in touch with the Centre.
The internal seminar
The internal seminar runs every Wednesday at 13:30 in the Michael Sars seminar room, on the second floor of Bioblokken in the High Technology Centre. PhD candidates, postdoctoral researchers, group leaders and visiting researchers present ongoing work to each other.
The series takes a break over the summer and starts again in August. Visiting researchers who stay at the Centre are invited to give a talk in the series.
The Michael Sars Symposium
Every year the Centre organizes a day-long symposium on current topics in evolutionary biology. The symposium brings together local and international researchers, and is open to all.
The 2026 edition took place on 4 June in the Atlantis Auditorium at Media City Bergen, in collaboration with the Computational Biology Unit at the University of Bergen. The theme was Living systems in a variable ocean, with ten talks ranging from theoretical ecology to marine molecular biology across four sessions: cell biology in context, life history and evolution, digitizing gene regulation, and integrative systems perspectives. The local organizers were Centre director Lionel Christiaen and the director of the Computational Biology Unit, Nathalie Reuter.
The date of the next symposium is announced well in advance. Contact us if you want to be added to the notification list.
Previous symposia
Themes of the earlier editions of the Michael Sars Symposium.
2025 — Decoding signals and unveiling architectures, from molecules to organisms
The fourth edition brought together experts from several fields of biology around a shared theme: evolution. The programme ranged from molecular signalling pathways to the architecture of organisms.
2024 — Joint meeting with the Nordic developmental biology societies
The Michael Sars Symposium was organized together with the Nordic societies for developmental biology. The meeting gave a broad view of recent advances in developmental biology and strengthened ties between Nordic and international institutions.
2023 — Cells, organisms and their environment
The second edition gathered 120 participants at Media City Bergen for a day on the interplay between cells, organisms and the environment they live in.
2022 — Biological transitions: from molecules to evolution
The first edition of the Michael Sars Symposium addressed biological transitions, from molecular mechanisms to evolutionary shifts.
What previous speakers say
“The 2025 Michael Sars Symposium presented the broadest range of topics I've seen at a one-day meeting, all cohesively linked by shared interests in evolutionary biology.” — Professor Ryan Hibbs, University of California San Diego.
“The organisers should be congratulated for putting together such a fascinating and diverse programme which no doubt reflects the unique nature of the scientific research being conducted in Bergen. I also very much appreciated the memorable guided tour of the facility where each group took the time to introduce their model species to us.” — Dr Kirsty Wan, University of Exeter.