*Attendees on Day 1 of BIOGRIP's first conference.*

BIOGRIP hosted a conference at the UCT Graduate School of Business campus in the Cape Town Waterfront district in January 2026. This event was the first time we'd brought together the whole BIOGRIP community plus others, to share the science we do and talk about our analytical facilities, communication and other topics.

The event took place over 3 days, from Wednesday 28th to Friday 30th January and featured 34 15-minute presentations, 16 posters, 4 half-hour keynote talks and 3 hour-long panel discussions. The posters and presentations were on topics as varied as aquifer recharge from stormwater in Cape Town, tracing oceanic circulation with nitrogen isotopes, and mercury emissions across South Africa. People working on such diverse topics immediately saw the links, for example, between mercury in the air and in the groundwater, or how oceanic circulation affects weather and therefore stormwater recharge. This kind of interdisciplinary approach was part of what we wanted to achieve.

The panel discussions, on the topics of laboratory quality control, analytical capabilities and communication, generated much discussion amongst the panel members and the floor, and attendees were left with challenges to apply some of the proposed solutions to their work.

The keynote presentations were as follows:

Prof Judith Sealy - 50 years of the UCT Stable Light Isotope Lab
Prof Pieter van Zyl - An overview and highlights of research emanating from the Welgegund atmospheric monitoring station
A/Prof Kirsty Carden - The value of partnerships in reorienting science for future water management - the RRIP program
Patricia Groenewald - Renovated, reinvigorated and raring to go: the UCT Stable Light Isotope Laboratory.

The atmosphere at the conference was both scientific and friendly. Sessions were chaired by a wide variety of people, speakers were almost always on time, there was only one presenter who did not arrive and there was plenty of time for socialising at the tea breaks, lunch and the Thursday evening dinner. For quite a few, it was their first conference, or chance to present or chair a session. Attendance was 88-81-76 people over the 3 days. Figures 1 and 2 show the breakdown of attendees by location and career position.

Seeing as this was the first time anyone has attempted to bring such a wide array of people together across biogeochemistry in South Africa, BIOGRIP funded the event, charging only a token R500 per person. Fortunately, without even seeking sponsorship, two sponsors joined us and contributed to the event financially and by being there. The simplified budget is shown below.

The conference had a single, continuous session, so there was no choice over what sessions to attend. As a result, people were exposed to science far outside their normal field of interest. However, the feeling appeared to be that a lot of this was beneficial and encouraged people to see the links between their fields. Part of the intention of this conference was to encourage collaboration between the different nodes of BIOGRIP, located at various universities around the country. Also, the intention was to motivate people to push their science into the realm of application, both in the corporate and government spaces.

Much of the work done in BIOGRIP has applicability to solving environmental issues. This can be done through adoption of technology or approaches in the business world, or by creation of policy in the government sphere. However, sometimes the work being done by one group of researchers addresses only a narrow part of the issue, and so it is hoped by having a wider scope that the solutions we can present to corporations will be more wholistic. Similarly with policy, the hope is that we can show how the issues in one area relate to another, for example, climate change and mine site rehabilitation, where policies need to encourage behaviour that targets both issues.

Feedback at the conference was positive and we believe it was a huge success. We hope to do more of this in future.