An update from the SLLS Executive Committee on the 2020 Conference in Vilnius in the light of Covid-19
 
As a committee, we wanted to send our very best wishes to everyone in response to the Covid-19 epidemic. We also wanted to update you on the 2020 Annual Conference. As you can imagine, we have been discussing this very actively with the local organisers. As with so many things, we are weighing up the risks of still proceeding with any plans for an in-person conference this year. With developments here in the UK and earlier across much of Europe and elsewhere, things look very uncertain. We will keep you posted as things develop, and the costs of cancelling/postponing will not change between now and June so please await a firm decision one way or another in the next few weeks. Our aim is to make this decision as soon as possible to help everyone’s plans, but we also don’t want to make a decision too early.
 
In the meantime, we have gone ahead with rating the abstracts as usual. We had a great response to the call once again from the across the globe in amazing longitudinal and lifecourse research topics and if you submitted an abstract, you will have heard from us regarding the outcome.

We are exploring options for running all or part of the conference remotely. I'm sure you will all agree that with the pressures of the climate crisis and what will hopefully be a positive downturn in the amount that we all travel for work and for meetings in future, finding ways to attend conferences more effectively remotely is something that we will all need to explore - even if we don't manage to organise this, with all the pressures of Covid-19, for the conference this year.
 
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and we will update everyone with a final decision before the end of May. Please take care of yourselves, your friends, family, neighbours and colleagues in the meantime. You can keep up-to-date with the Society via our Facebook and Twitter accounts in between emails.
 
With all good wishes and take care,

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Ingrid Schoon and the Executive Committee.