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Little did I know when submitting to ESA Mid Term conference last year! After submitting in the beginning of 2020, the world changed, and the conference organisers (correctly predicting the situation) postponed the conference and later moved it online. Instead of enjoying the conference atmosphere in my home university in Jyväskylä in August 2020, I sat in my home office in Tampere in January 2021. This was my first international conference in the Zoom era, and I was a little concerned of how I would manage three full Zoom-days without getting crushing head- and backaches. Surprisingly well, it turns out!

The theme of the conference fitted well in this remote era as well: Places, spaces and cultures of ageing. The program had six well-known keynote speakers and the sessions were full of fascinating abstracts with various themes from definitional problems of ageing to euthanasia to ageing policies of prisoners. Luckily, now the moving from session to another was easier and caused less hassle than in “physical” conferences: no one even noticed me leaving and entering!

The keynotes were extremely interesting and well fitting to the theme. On the first day, Shereen Hussein and Tine Rostgaard gave their evocative presentations; Hussein from the perspective of global ageing and Rostgaard from the viewpoint of long-term care. I enjoyed the criticality of both talks towards the concept of ageing, and I could see the same criticality in the session presentations as well from other researchers. The next day, Ruth Bartlett’s presentation dealt with citizenship and inclusion of persons with dementia, and the discussion after the presentation was hugely interesting: what is an inclusive method in the study of people with memory disorders? Consistently with the same theme, Päivi Topo talked about the role of older persons in the implementation of age programs in Finland, and the discussion flowed smoothly between and after these two presentations. The final two keynotes were Chris Gilleard and Ricca Edmondson. Gilleard’s discussions of the interface between the third and fourth ages were fascinating, and Edmondson, on the other hand, focused on wisdom and power in a very thoughtful way.

The sessions revolved around various topics ranging from dementia care to euthanasia to ageing inmates to disability issues – just to mention a small fraction. It really was an extremely difficult task to decide in which to participate. The most popular ones (the themes with the most sessions) were the ones discussing care poverty, care policies in different countries and transnational ageing, and digitalisation. I, personally, was fascinated about the various critical views of conceptualisations of ageing and old age. What great minds we have in the field of ageing studies!

In my opinion, the organisers had done a magnificent job with the conference. They had thought of everything; there was even a practical margin in the program so all the inevitable digital fuss would not take any extra time. It was easy to find the Zoom rooms in a separate email, and the program book had location information as in any other conference. Only the times caused trouble occasionally; some presenters in other time zones had mixed up the times and came in late, but that is a small hiccup in the bigger – and successful - picture.

I agree with the comments that thanked the possibility for more casual discussions as well. We had a nice interactive coffee break (although I was sceptic at first) in break out rooms with different themes: we could go walking on ice, to beer tasting or to a sports museum! I enjoyed my “walk on ice”, even though we were only around ten people in the coffee break – I guess the Zoom-day was already getting too long for many, and I have to admit that the breaks away from the screen were essential during these three days.

What comes to the atmosphere of the conference, I felt a relaxed vibe throughout the conference. I loved the fact that I could participate without actually speaking out loud or showing my face (although I felt encouraged to do that as well), but just by typing in the chat box or using the reaction buttons in Zoom. No one was forced to participate in a certain manner, and I felt like everything (and everyone) was accepted as they were. Already when reading the program booklet with recommendations for stretches and good food et cetera, I felt taken care of.

Thank you ESA Ageing in Europe; thank you Jenni Spännäri, Outi Jolanki, Emilia Leinonen, Jenna Reunanen and Edward Tolhurst, thank you Ageing in Europe research network, CoE AgeCare and the Ģ��ֱ�� team for a great conference! Surprisingly, I did not get (very bad) headaches or backaches, but instead I got loads of inspiration and motivation to continue working in this field.

Salla Era, PhD student, Ģ��ֱ��