While Eastern Europe outside the EU comprises up to three quarters of modern ranges for many European bat species, an influx of fresh data (both conference papers and journal articles) from this vast region is rather modest, with the majority of studies published in Russian and, therefore, barely accessible for foreign scientific communities. Consequently, we observe apparent lack of communication between former USSR countries, which, despite current political differences and conflicts, share common research approaches based on the unified scholastic practice of the Soviet past.  

To tackle this issue, we aimed to bring together most active bat researches and conservationists from these countries with primarily goal to resuscitate dialog and mutual trust, and develop common priorities and agenda for future research during our conference.

Several scientists were invited and all costs were covered (tickets, ground transportation, accommodation, per diem, post conference tour) for conference participation from post USSR countries. They are Aliaksey Shpak from Belarus, Lena Godlevska from Ukraine, Ilya Artyushin from Russia, Ioseb Natradze and Aleksadr Bukhnikashvili from Georgia. Scientists from Moldova, San Marino, Bulgaria were invited to participate conference, but there were some problems to come to Armenia.

 Conference hosted 45 participants from 12 countries: Russia, Georgia, Lithuania, UK, The Netherlands, Germany, Belarus, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Armenia and lasted 3 days.

See the report for details