Dear Scientists,

We are very pleased to invite you to the 1st Sleep Science Winter School (SSWS), March 1-4 2018, the former BENESCO Winter Research Meeting. From a joint effort of the University of Bern and the Università della Svizzera Italiana, the Academy of Sleep and Consciousness (ASC) was founded.

This academy’ s goal is to provide a high-class postgraduate educational program in sleep and consciousness.

The Sleep Science Winter school will be a module of the future educational program with a strong focus on clinical and basic research. Its clinical educational complement will be the Sleep Medical Summer School (SMSS) that will take place in summer 2019 in Lugano. Both modules will be supported by the Bern Network for Epilepsy, Sleep and Consciousness as well as the European Sleep Foundation (ESF).

The 1st Sleep Science Winter School offers a diverse program – scientifically but also regarding the different presentation formats. The target audience for teaching courses in the morning are young postgraduate scientists. The scientific sessions in the afternoon provide insights in up-to-date research in the field of sleep research and modelling, chronobiology, states of consciousness and epilepsy covering the research focus of the Bern Network for Epilepsy, Sleep and Consciousness (BENESCO).

Highlights of the research meeting are the 3-days course series on Network Neurscience given by Prof. Flavio Fröhlich, the keynotes on the brain-lung-heart-interaction during sleep as well as on neuroplasticity and sleep given by three scientists with an international respected reputation in their field of expertise: Prof. Dr. Winfried Randerath from the University Witten/Herdecke and the Bethanien Hospital in Solingen, Germany; PD Dr. Jan W. Kantelhardt, Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany and Prof. Dr. Reto Huber from the University of Zurich. A further highlight is the young scientists’ poster session on the Thursday evening.