About us

We train future bioinformatics experts.

NGSchool (Next Generation School) is a platform to share expertise in the field of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) data analysis and general Bioinformatics.

We organize activities for young researchers who are primarily from Central & Eastern Europe, who have a background in biology/mathematics/informatics, and who strive to improve their bioinformatics and data analysis skills.

Summer school is our flagship annual event - so far we have organised four editions. We also co-organized a number of local events, such as workshops, symposiums, and conferences.

NGSchool is all about people and sharing - building a community of bioinformatics experts and enthusiasts.

over 300 participants

in four editions of NGSchool

over 50 speakers & lecturers

at NGSchool and sattelite events

28 countries

represented at all our events

We decided to make a difference.

As many great things in life, NGSchool started from a hangout and discussion over a beer with a bunch of friendly people.

The idea was born over lunch in Bratislava, back in summer 2015.

The initial motivation behind NGSchool was to organise excellent & affordable training in Bioinformatics for young talented scientists. While there were many great hands-on courses in Bioinformatics at the time, all of them were expensive, especially for researchers from Central & Eastern European countries.

This is where we decided to make a difference.

This is far from typical educational initiative!

Leaving an impression.

What is NGSchool like, and how people who have taken part as either organizers, speakers or participants feel about it?

To find this out, read our story which was published as trilogy of Medium posts linked below.

Read a bit about why, how and what we are doing, and hopefully you’ll be convinced that this is far from typical educational initiative. NGSchool is all about people and sharing, and everything that happened in the last few years is a blend of ideas, expectations, desires and experiences of numerous wonderful people. Now, we would like to invite you to get to know us and become the part of this community. Enjoy the ride!

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How to make Eastern European bioinformatics great again? The organization of educational events is a very ill-defined problem with many variables. It is not mathematics. Oh, well, it is, but the solution to this problem is “there is no analytical solution”. We work together, we put our souls into the project, we spend a lot of our personal time on it, and — we disagree. Diversity is the key. Tolerance is the key. Friendship is the key.

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We have been teaching (and learning!) about the cutting edge technologies in bioinformatics for several years now. Many of us grew together with NGSchool, while obtaining valuable skills in both organising scientific events and science itself. How was it? Well, tough. We were always extremely tired at the end. But was it worth it? Can we recommend doing this to others? Read on to find out.

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We believe in open science.

Everyone is welcome to participate! Prior experience in Bioinformatics is not necessary, but strong motivation is desired. Our community means everything to us, therefore our past contributors are warmly welcomed to all NGSchool events as guests.

Talk to us