Origins Center 2026 Conference

May 18–20, 2026 (Abdij Rolduc, Kerkrade)

Questions about the origin and nature of life — and whether it might exist beyond Earth — have a rare power to pull disciplines together. This spring, the Origins Center will bring that full breadth to Kerkrade for our 2026 conference at Abdij Rolduc, a nearly 900-year-old medieval abbey and one of the official Top 100 Dutch heritage monuments. Today, Rolduc is a dedicated conference center and hotel with multiple meeting rooms and on-site accommodation, set in a quiet, green area near the German and Belgian borders.

Across three days, a multidisciplinary community will share recent developments and spark new collaborations.

Important dates

Conference: Monday May 18 – Wednesday May 20, 2026
Registration + abstract submission deadline: February 9, 2026

Conference themes

• The origin of life
• Evolution of life and planet
• Life and biosignatures on other planets
• Metabolism, from genes to function
• From cells to organisms
• Engaging society

Confirmed invited speakers

• Paul Rainey (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön, Germany) — Egalitarian transitions and the evolution of heredity
• Bob Planqué (Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands) — Searching for Principles of Microbial Physiology: From Metabolic Transitions to Whole-Cell Control
• Ramon Brasser (University of Oslo, Norway) — A planetary science perspective for timing the onset of life’s origins on Earth
• Inge Loes ten Kate (Utrecht University, the Netherlands) — Biosignatures and the search for extraterrestrial life
• Douwe van Hinsbergen (Utrecht University, the Netherlands) — Luctor et emergo: The geological processes needed to make land on a wet planet
• Oliver Trapp (Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Germany) — Prebiotic Organocatalysis A Mechanism to the Emergence of Life
• Herma Cuppen (Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands) — Surface astrochemistry – how complex can it be
• Nathalie Katsonis (University of Groningen, the Netherlands) — Origins of Cellular Compartmentalization: From Lipids to Protocells
• Lena Noack (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany) — Bare-rock worlds or planets with peculiar atmospheres? Predicted atmospheric evolution of rocky planets around M dwarfs
• Wieger Wamelink (Wageningen University & Research, the Netherlands) — To boldly grow where no plant has grown before: growing crops on Mars and lessons for Earth
• Stephanie Cazaux (Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands) — Icy moons and their subsurface oceans: from Cassini and JWST observations to laboratory experiments
• Kepa Ruiz-Mirazo (University of the Basque Country, Spain) — Why is minimal life so complex? On the need to integrate metabolic, ecological and evolutionary dynamics within abiogenesis

Contributed talks: please submit!

We expect to accommodate ~20 contributed talks from PhD candidates, postdocs, and PIs — so if you have interesting results, a new method, a bold synthesis, or even a “this doesn’t fit in my field but it might fit in yours” story: don’t be shy to apply.

Practical details

Registration fees
€290 — single bed room
€210 — shared (2-person) bed room

What’s included
Registration covers accommodation (nights of May 18 and 19), all meals, plus coffee breaks. The conference will also include dinner at the abbey, with plenty of time for informal discussions and reconnecting across the Origins Center community.

Venue
Abdij Rolduc
Heyendallaan 82, 6464 EP Kerkrade, The Netherlands

You can register here or check our website for more information.

Questions? Contact [email protected].

We’re very much looking forward to seeing everyone together again — and to filling a medieval abbey with brand-new ideas about life, planets, and everything in between.]]

Astrobiology