The YEAR Annual Conference is an International Conference open to all YEAR members and other participants. It is organized, either in conjunction with the General Meeting or on another date and location.

The first YEAR Annual Conference took place in Brussels, Belgium on December 4th 2008. The theme of the conference was "Making Money out of Research" and it featured presentations from both public and private organisations, among others EARTO, EIRMA, European Patent Office and Philips.

The second YEAR Annual Conference was organised on October 15th and 16th 2009 in Graz, Austria. The theme of the conference was funding of research with a focus on SME, under the title "the Recipe of Being a Smart Researcher". The conference featured presentations by, among others:

• European Commission,
• EURODOC,
• Technical University of Graz,
• Styrian Business Promotion Agency (SFG), and
• RTD-Services

The conference also included visits to JOANNEUM Research and NanoTecCenter Weiz Forschungsgesellschaft mbH. More information about the conference can be found in: YEAR Annual Conference 2009.

The third YEAR Annual Conference will be organised on March 23-25th in Seville, Spain. The conference host will be AICIA and the theme will be "Getting your research funded by private companies". More information about the conference can be found in: YEAR Annual Conference 2011.