The 4th International Online Conference on Animals
The 4th International Online Conference on Animals
Part of the International Online Conference on Animals series
Event's Timezone: Central European Time
6 November 2025
4 December 2025
13 March 2026
Aquatic Animals, Wildlife, Zoo Animals, One Health, Sustainable, Environment
The IOCAN 2026 is now OPEN for Abstract Submission and Registration.
Instruction for authors are available online.
Submit your abstracts HERE.
For any inquiries, please contact us at: iocan2026@mdpi.com
Welcome from the Chairs
We are delighted to announce the 4th International Online Conference on Animals (IOCAN2026), organized by MDPI's open access journal Animals (ISSN: 2076-2615; Impact Factor: 2.7). This year's conference will be held online from 17 to 19 March 2026.
On behalf of the Conference Chairs of IOCAN 2026, we invite you to participate in this significant event. This conference offers a unique opportunity for animal scientists globally to share their latest research, foster communication, and collaboratively address the pressing challenges animals face, such as declining genetic diversity, climate change, pollution, and intensive production systems. As an online event, you can conveniently participate from anywhere, eliminating the need for travel.
S2. One health: Improve Disease Manifestation and Management in Animals, Humans, and the Environment;
S3. Sustainable Animal Nutrition;
S4. Animal Genetics and Genomics;
S5. Environmental Challenges to Animals and Precision Livestock Farming;
S6. Animal Physiology, Reproduction, and Sustainable Animal Production;
S7. Aquatic Animals.
We encourage you to join the global discussion on how we can better care for animals. This is an event you will not want to miss!
Kind regards,
Conference Chairs
Prof. Dr. Clive J. C. Phillips, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Estonia;
Prof. Dr. Colin G. Scanes, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, USA;
Prof. Dr. Michael Hässig, University of Zürich, Switzerland.
Event Chairs
1. Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Sciences, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Kreutzwaldi 1, Estonia; 2. Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute, Kent St., Australia
Clive Phillips was Australia’s first Professor of Animal Welfare, at the University of Queensland, and foundation director of the Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics. His PhD focused on dairy cow nutrition and behaviour. He was previously a lecturer at the Universities of Cambridge and Wales. He has authored about 400 scientific journal articles on the welfare of farm, zoo and companion animals, animal nutrition, transport and production. His books include Principles of Cattle Production, The Animal Trade and The Welfare of Animals - the Silent Majority. He recently co-edited the Routledge Handbook in Animal Welfare. Clive chairs the Queensland and Western Australian Governments’ Animal Welfare Boards, is editor-in-chief of the journal Animals and Springer’s Animal Welfare book series. His interview series, ‘Conversations with Clive’ can be found at https://tinybeamfund.org/Conversations-With-Clive
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Milwaukee, USA
Colin Scanes was educated in the UK - B.Sc (1st class honours), D.Sc. (University of Hull), Ph.D. (University of Wales). He has published 21 books, 108 reviews/chapters, & 304 refereed papers. He has held faculty/administrative positions at the University of Leeds (UK), Rutgers University (professor/department chair), Iowa State University (professor/executive associate dean), Mississippi State University (professor/Vice president research) and University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (professor/vice chancellor research). He is presently president (Scanes Technology & Research llc. consulting for industry, NGOs and governments). He has received awards for teaching, research and contributions to agriculture (e.g. Honorary doctorate, University for Agriculture, Krakow).
Department for Farm Animals, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
Michael Hässig was a professor at Vetsuisse Faculty, the University of Zurich. His main scientific interests are the etiology of bovine abortion, especially infectious etiology, basics on immunology related to abortion and the perinatal time, epidemiological studies and herd problems. Personal additional scientific projects include influence of NIR on bovine health; adverse effects after vaccination; GIS in clinical epidemiology. He is an Expert to the federal commission of the parliament for animal protection, is the Section Editor-in-Chief of "Animal Physiology" in Animals. He has authored about 268 publications and published 54 scientific journal articles as the first author.
Sessions
2. One health: Improve Disease Manifestation and Management in Animals, Humans, and the Environment
3. Sustainable Animal Nutrition
4. Animal Genetics and Genomics
5. Environmental Challenges to Animals and Precision Livestock Farming
6. Animal Physiology, Reproduction, and Sustainable Animal Production
7. Aquatic Animals
Registration
The registration for IOCAN 2026 will be free of charge! The registration includes attendance to all conference sessions.
If you are registering several people under the same registration, please do not use the same email address for each person, but their individual university email addresses. Thank you for your understanding.
Please note that the submission and registration are two separate parts. Only scholars who registered can receive a link to access the conference live streaming. The deadline for registration is 13 March 2026.
Instructions for Authors
IOCAN 2026 will accept abstracts only. The accepted abstracts will be available online on Sciforum.net during and after the conference.
1. Deadline for abstract submission: 6 November 2025.
2. Abstract acceptance notification: 4 December 2025.
You will be notified of the acceptance of an oral/poster presentation in a separate email.
Abstract submissions should be completed online by registering with www.sciforum.net and using the "Submit Abstract" function once logged into the system. No physical template is necessary.
1. The abstract structure should include the introduction, methods, results, and conclusions sections of about 200–300 words in length.
2. All abstracts should be submitted and presented in clear, publication-ready English with accurate grammar and spelling.
3. You may submit multiple abstracts. However, only one abstract will be selected for oral presentation.
4. The abstracts submitted to this conference must be original and novel, without prior publication in any journals or it will not be accepted to this conference.
Detailed Requirements:
1. The submitting author must ensure that all co-authors are aware of the contents of the abstract.
2. Please select only one presenter for each submission. If you would like to change the presenter after submission, please email us accordingly.
Note: We only accept live presentations.
The slot for the oral presentation is 15 mins. We advise that your presentation lasts for a maximum of 12 mins, leaving at least 3 mins for the Q&A session.
Authors are encouraged to prepare a presentation in PowerPoint or similar software, to be displayed online along with the abstract. Slides, if available, will be displayed directly on the website using the proprietary slide viewer at Sciforum.net. Slides can be prepared in exactly the same way as for any traditional conference where research results are presented. Slides should be converted to PDF format prior to submission so that they can be converted for online display.
- Size in pixel: 1080 width x 1536 height–portrait orientation.
- Size in cm: 38,1 width x 54,2 height–portrait orientation.
- Font size: ≥16.
- Examples of successful submissions can be viewed here at the following links: (1), (2), (3).
- You can use our free template to create your poster.
It is the author's responsibility to identify and declare any personal circumstances or interests that may be perceived as inappropriately influencing the representation or interpretation of clinical research. If there is no conflict, please state "The authors declare no conflicts of interest." This should be conveyed in a separate "Conflict of Interest" statement preceding the "Acknowledgments" and "References" sections at the end of the manuscript. Any financial support for the study must be fully disclosed in the "Acknowledgments" section.
MDPI, the publisher of the Sciforum.net platform, is an open access publisher. We believe authors should retain the copyright to their scholarly works. Hence, by submitting an abstract to this conference, you retain the copyright to the work, but you grant MDPI the non-exclusive right to publish this abstract online on the Sciforum.net platform. This means you can easily submit your full paper (with the abstract) to any scientific journal at a later stage and transfer the copyright to its publisher if required.
Publication Opportunity
1. Animals Journal Publication
Participants in this conference are cordially invited to contribute a full manuscript to the conference's Special Issue (to be updated), published in Animals (ISSN: 2076-2615, Impact Factor 2.7), with a 10% discount on the publication fee. Please note, if you have IOAP/association discounts, conference discounts will be combined with IOAP/association discounts. Conference discounts cannot be combined with reviewer vouchers. All submitted papers will undergo MDPI’s standard peer-review procedure. The abstracts should be cited and noted on the first page of the paper.
2. Proceeding Paper Publication
All accepted abstracts will be published in the conference report of the 4th International Online Conference on Animals in the Biology and Life Sciences Forum (ISSN: 2673-9976); if you wish to publish an extended proceeding paper (4-8 pages), please submit it to the same journal after the conference.
Authors are asked to disclose that it is a proceeding paper of the IOCAN 2026 conference paper in their cover letter. Carefully read the rules outlined in the 'Instructions for Authors' on the journal’s website and ensure that your submission adheres to these guidelines.
Proceedings submission deadline: 5 May 2026
Manuscripts for the proceedings issue must be formatted as follows:
Title.
Full author names.
Affiliations (including full postal address) and authors' e-mail addresses.
Abstract.
Keywords.
Introduction.
Methods.
Results and Discussion.
Conclusions.
Acknowledgements.
References.
Please click HERE to submit your proceeding paper to the Biology and Life Sciences Forum.
BLSF proceedings template.docx
Event Awards
To acknowledge the support of the conference's esteemed authors and recognize their outstanding scientific accomplishments, we are pleased to announce that the conference will provide six awards including Best Oral Presentation Awards and Best Poster Awards.
The Awards
Number of Awards Available: 6
The Best Oral Presentation Awards are given to the submission judged to make the most significant oral contribution to the conference.
The Best Poster Awards are given to the submission judged to make the most significant and interesting poster for the conference.
There will be six winners selected for these awards. The winner will receive a certificate and 200 CHF each.
Sponsors and Partners
For information regarding sponsorship and exhibition opportunities, please click here.
Organizers
Media Partners
