News and Events

The latest microscopy events

European Light Microscopy Initiative – ELMI2026 16 to 19 June Coimbra, Portugal.

We are excited to welcome you to the 26th edition of the European Light Microscopy Initiative – ELMI2026 meeting, taking place from 16 to 19 June 2026 in the historic and vibrant city of Coimbra, Portugal.

Hosted at the beautiful Convento São Francisco, ELMI2026 will continue the long-standing tradition of bringing together the international light microscopy community—from researchers and facility staff to developers and industry partners.

More information about the meeting is here

Registration is here

ELMI advert 2026

Introduction to QuPath Workshops in Edinburgh

QuPath is open-source software for bioimage analysis, developed by our group at the IGC (https://qupath.github.io).

With more than 800,000 software downloads and over 5,800 paper citations so far, QuPath is used a lot – often to analyse large whole slide and multiplexed images.

The workshops will take place on:

  • Tuesday 10 March in the Chancellor’s Building (Edinburgh BioQuarter) – ePay link
  • Tuesday 31 March in the Medical Education Centre (Western General) –  ePay link
     

Both workshops will run from 9:30am - 4:30pm and cover the same content.

Registration is via ePay and the cost per workshop is £50.

 
We’ll focus on introducing QuPath’s main concepts and features – including how to view and annotate images, and how to detect and classify cells. To participate, you’ll need to bring a laptop with QuPath installed to follow along with the tutorials. If you’re already familiar with QuPath and want to learn more advanced features (e.g. batch processing, scripting), then look out for intermediate and advanced workshops at some point in the future.

2026 Core facility managers meetings for Light microscopy and Flow Cytometry

The Light Microscopy Facility meeting will be held at the University of Newcastle on 8-9th of January 2026

Register here

https://www.rms.org.uk/rms-event-calendar/2026-events/uk-light-microscopy-facility-meeting-2026.html

The Flow Cytometry Facilities meeting will be held at the University of Liverpool on 6th and 7th January.

https://www.rms.org.uk/rms-event-calendar/2026-events/flow-cytometry-facilities-meeting-2026.html

Zeiss Elyra users meeting - February 2026 Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute

Core facility staff and microscopists who interact with / use the Zeiss Elyra 7 are invited to the users meeting at the Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute, Bearsden Glasgow. The meeting will be held on Tue, 24 February 2026 - Wed, 25 February

Register here

https://www.zeiss.co.uk/microscopy/l/events/2025/zeiss-elyra-7-user-group-meeting.html

Upcoming events

UK Preclinical Imaging Network (UK-PIN)

Dear Colleagues,

We  invite you to take part in the UK Preclinical Imaging Network (UK-PIN),  an initiative which aims to bring together researchers, technical specialists, and facility managers involved in in vivo preclinical imaging across the UK.

Our aim is to build a connected and inclusive community that strengthens collaboration, supports training and development, and promotes shared access to imaging resources. To help shape the network’s direction and identify national strengths, challenges, and opportunities, we invite you to complete a short survey: Complete the UK-PIN Survey

We also welcome colleagues who wish to take a more active role in helping guide and develop the network.

Thank you for helping us shape a collaborative future for UK preclinical imaging.

Warm regards,
Dr Katie Dexter – Southampton University 
Dr Saimir Luli – Newcastle University

Scottish Microscopy Society Symposium November 2026

SMS are delighted to announce that we are running our 52nd annual symposium, hosted at Heriot Watt University. Registration will open in September.

ECRs are encouraged to submit an abstract for an oral or poster presentation. This is a great opportunity to present in a friendly environment, to win prizes and to interact with peers in the microscopy community.

Please check back for more information.

Previous events

Our past events

Edinburgh Bioimaging meetings

  • Winter meeting - IRR January 19th 2026
  • Autumn Meeting - Edinburgh Futures Institute 15th September 2025
  • Spring meeting - Chancellor's Building March 26th 2025
  • Summer meeting - QMRI July 22nd 2024
  • Spring meeting - HRB February 29th 2024
  • Autumn meeting- WTCB - COIL September 2023
  • Summer meeting – Roslin Bioimaging Facility June 13th 2023
  • Spring meeting – SCRM February 1st 2023

Edinburgh Bioimaging Autumn community meeting

Edinburgh Bioimaging meeting (September 2025) agenda:

  1. Bioimage Data Management project round-up and resources
  2. BioimagingUK updates
  3. Teaching resources
  4. Festival of Bioimaging planning
  5. Improvement in service contracts and planning.

Introduction to image processing and analysis with Fiji/ImageJ and other analysis freeware

If you have ever wanted to get more from your microscopes/camera than just pretty pictures, this workshop is for you. 

TO REGISTER: email Matthieu.Vermeren@ed.ac.uk

Scottish Microscopy Symposium 2025

SMS are delighted to announce that we are running our 51st annual symposium, hosted at the University of Aberdeen. Registration will open in September.

ECRs are encouraged to submit an abstract for an oral or poster presentation. This is a great opportunity to present in a friendly environment, to win prizes and to interact with peers in the microscopy community.

Our keynote speaker this year is Prof. Rachel Lennon, Professor of Nephrology at the University of Manchester. 

Tissue clearing workshop: Approaches to fundamentals

This BNA workshop, supported by Miltenyi Biotec offers a unique opportunity to learn the fundamentals of tissue clearing and provides guidance on determining suitable approaches for clearing different types of samples. Register here: https://www.bna.org.uk/events/ems-event-calendar/tissue-clearing-workshop-approaches-to-fundamentals.html

Organiser: Dr Cristina Martinez Gonzalez 
Instructors: Dr Cristina Martinez Gonzalez and Ms Kirsty Craigie.

BNA workshop info