GIREP-EPEC 2025 conference app — track filters and push notifications for 350 physics educators in Leiden

GIREP-EPEC 2025 — the joint conference of the International Research Group on Physics Teaching (GIREP) and the European Physics Education Conference (EPEC) — took place at Leiden University, Netherlands, from 30 June to 4 July 2025, attracting approximately 350 participants from the physics education research community.

The programme featured 6 thematic strands, 252 contributions, 60 of them posters, addressing topics from laboratory-based learning and computational thinking to equity in physics education and teacher professional development.

The Challenge: A Diverse Education Community New to Indico

Unlike particle physics conferences where attendees routinely use Indico, many GIREP-EPEC participants come from education faculties and secondary-school teaching backgrounds. They expected a polished mobile experience similar to mainstream conference apps, but the organisers relied on Indico for programme management.

Bridging this gap — delivering a consumer-quality mobile agenda while keeping Indico as the backend — was the core requirement.

How HEPCon Helped

HEPCon imported the GIREP-EPEC Indico timetable and presented it through a clean, intuitive web app with strand-based colour coding, day filters, and full-text search. Attendees could browse sessions by topic or speaker without needing to understand Indico's interface.

Push notifications informed participants of room changes and schedule adjustments — particularly useful in the multi-building Leiden University campus where sessions were spread across several venues.

Outcome

The clean interface was well received by educators who had not previously used Indico-based conference tools. Organisers reduced their workload for daily updates, and the push notifications helped attendees navigate across the distributed campus without missing sessions.