Manchester and Jodrell Bank welcomed the worldwide very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) community for the 17th EVN Symposium and Users’ Meeting.
From the 14-19th September 2026, the biennial EVN Symposium came to Manchester for third time in its history, bringing together experts from across the world to discuss VLBI and radio astronomy. You can read about previous symposia here. It was supported by e-MERLIN and run by members of the e-MERLIN support team, with 24 countries represented across nearly all major world wide radio telescope observatories.
The conference kicked off with a talk from Chris Parkes, Head of the Manchester Department of Physics & Astronomy, detailing the history of the department and research. During the week, we heard from many of the foremost researchers in the world about new techniques, exciting results and planned telescopes, all furthering the field of radio astronomy and VLBI science. What was clear throughout the week is that much of the work being performed by the VLBI community can only be done with long baseline interferometry. Moreover, much of the work presented came from early career researchers, showing that the VLBI community is strong and has a bright future ahead of it.
The team at the Joint Institute for VLBI ERIC (JIVE) engaged with their user base via a Q+A session. The European VLBI Network Proposal Committee Jack Radcliffe (EVN PC Chair) outlined the new procedures for proposing for time with the EVN, including dual-anonymity, a new web tool (Polaris), and new proposal submission dates and observing sessions. As part of a visit to the Square Kilometre Array Observatory Headquarters at Jodrell Bank, we heard from several members of the IAU-URSI Working Group on Historical Radio Astronomy, providing fascinating insights on the development of VLBI radio astronomy from the 1960s onwards.
At the conference dinner at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), we heard addresses from Krzysztof Katarzynski (Chair of EVN Consortium Board of Directors), Aga Slowikowska (JIVE Director) and Rob Beswick (Head of e-MERLIN Operations/ukSRC Co-director). While all discussed the “dark clouds” that currently hang over the funding of Jodrell Bank and e-MERLIN, all were adamant that we will look back on these days at the next EVN Symposium in 2 years time as a crisis that was overcome by the collaborative efforts of e-MERLIN and partners across the world. The clear support for e-MERLIN and Jodrell Bank was apparent throughout the week, with several prominent figures providing interviews to the Jodcast for an e-MERLIN special podcast in the coming months.
With the 17th EVN Symposium and Users’ Meeting now concluded, we now look to the future. We were all excited to hear from Krzysztof Katarzynski that the 18th meeting in 2028 will be held in Latvia, where the EVN Symposium has never been held before. Latvia hosts the Irbene radio telescope at Ventspils, and is somewhere that many radio astronomers have never visited, so many in the VLBI world will be looking forward to the next edition of the Symposium!
You can see abstracts for the talks and posters on the EVN Symposium web page by clicking here.
Author: David Williams-Baldwin
Images Credit: University of Manchester