Dear all students in the UK. We would like to announce that the annual meeting of the UK Regional Student Chapter of the Society for Marine Mammalogy will be held at the Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU), St. Andrews from the 27-28th March. An Icebreaker will be held on the evening of the 26th March. We encourage all students registered in Universities across the UK and Ireland that are interested in marine mammal research to attend. The atmosphere of the conference is relatively informal, giving students a platform to discuss their research with other students. Postgraduate students are invited to submit abstracts for oral presentations and posters. For planning purposes, we have divided presentations into 5-minute speedtalk and 15 minute slots. We encourage new postgraduate students to talk about their future research plans using the 5-minute slots and for those further along in their studies to present for 15 minutes. Undergraduates with an interest in the field are also welcome to attend. The talks traditionally vary in content: from talks by new students discussing their future plans or the basis of their project, to students whose Ph.D’s are near completion. Our guest speakers include Dr. Dominic Mccafferty (Senior Lecturer, Honorary Senior Research Fellow (Institute of Biodiversity Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, Glasgow)) and Dr. Sean Twiss (Lecturer in the School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Durham). Dr Vincent Janik (Reader in Biology) will have an workshop about how to write project funding proposal. SMRU's GIS expert Clint Blight will talk about making "useful" maps with free software. There will also be a guided tour around the SMRU facilities. The final deadline for presentation abstracts (max 300 words) will be the 5th of February 2014. There is no registration fee and you don’t need to be an existing member of the Chapter. You can register for the Chapter at the same time as registering for the conference. This year students outside St. Andrews can apply for a Student Travel Grant (amount given will depend on where you are coming from). Registration forms can be downloaded from our website. Please visit our website for regular updates http://synergy.st-andrews.ac.uk/ukrsc/ or visit our facebook page UKrsc - the Society of Marine Mammalogy http://www.facebook.com/UKRSC <http://www.facebook.com/UKRSC#> Please submit your registration form by e-mail attachment to ukrsc@st-andrews.ac.uk<mailto:ukrsc@st-andrews.ac.uk> by 5th February 2014. If you have any further questions regarding the meeting, please don't hesitate to get in touch. Hope to see you all in St. Andrews in March 2014. With best wishes, The committee of the UK Regional Student Chapter for the Society for Marine Mammalogy This year meeting will be kindly sponsored by Chelonia Limited, http://www.chelonia.co.uk/ and SMRU Marine, http://www.smru.co.uk