Fuse International Conference postponed to 2021

It is with huge disappointment that we have to announce the postponement of the 5th Fuse International Conference on Knowledge Exchange in Public Health.

Unfortunately, we feel that the conference has become increasingly untenable in light of the current COVID-19 situation. The recent guidance from the UK Government mandates a 14-day quarantine period for any person travelling to the UK from abroad and many universities and public health organisations in the UK are not supporting any requests from staff to attend conferences until well into 2021.  

Based on the current uncertainty about future travel and social distancing arrangement, we have taken the extremely difficult decision to postpone the conference until September 2021. We have discussed various alternative ideas for the conference, including hosting material and sessions online, combining online with face-to-face sessions, and postponing until later this year. However, given the value of face-to-face interaction for knowledge exchange, the highly interactive nature of our scheduled sessions and the ongoing uncertainty around COVID-19, we have decided to postpone and plan to come back stronger in 2021. 

We know that much of the value of the conference is in providing an international, interactive and reflective space for exchanging knowledge and accessing support for our work. In the current situation we were concerned that we would not be able to deliver this. This additional time will also allow for greater reflection on the current public health response across the globe to COVID-19 and will add value to the event by allowing space to think creatively about the way forward in public health and the importance of knowledge exchange for sharing learning from setbacks and successes in responding to coronavirus.  

If you had secured a space in the programme as a contributor this year, then you will be automatically offered a space in next year’s programme. We will also issue full refunds for all tickets purchased, or you can transfer your registration to next year’s conference to save you the hassle of having to re-register.

Once again, we are sorry that we have had to take this difficult decision but very much hope that you will join us in September 2021 for the 5th Fuse International Conference on Knowledge Exchange in Public Health. We are currently discussing the exact dates with the venue in Newcastle, UK and hope to confirm these shortly. We will contact all contributors nearer the time to check if they would like to update their proposed contributions and to ask if they are still happy to participate in the conference. 

In the meantime, please stay safe and well and we look forward to greeting you in Newcastle next year.

Last modified: Thu, 14 May 2020 12:05:07 BST