I've encountered for the first time in my career difficulty in attending a scientific meeting. The meeting in question is an EMBO workshop on From Molecules to Organisms, organized by the Human Technopole of Milan, Italy. The organizers stated that they "will give preference to young researchers from Europe, in particular young lab heads, postdoctoral fellows and PhD students". This is a clear discrimination against all non-Europeans, including scientists from developing countries, and all older scientist. My attempts to justify participation based on scientific grounds were dismissed by the organizers. They were deliberately hard to reach, including a ruse by contact personnel that they’ll call me “in 5 minutes”. This practice should be abolished at once. It comes at the expense of scientific quality. Once the organizers announce the meeting's scientific scope, the decision whether to participate or not should be left entirely to the scientific community. If the number of applicants exceeds capacity, selection should be based only on the order of application and scientific relevance.