The Joint Congress of European Neurology held in Istanbul, May 31-June 3, 2014, was attended by a total of 5923 persons.
This year, the participants were asked to fill in an online congress evaluation form in order to receive a Certificate of Attendance. 24% of the congress participants completed the evaluation (1406 persons). Thank you for your valuable input!
Ten participants out of those who completed the survey won the congress lottery and received an EAN package. The winners are as follows:
– Bouchera El Moutawakil
– Lutz Harms, Germany
– Dimos-Dimitrios Mitsikostas, Greece
– Gulnar Mukhambetova,
– Sandra Moreira, Portugal
– Michael Nilsson, Sweden
– Minna Saarinen, Finland
– Annie Sortais, France
– Maria Stefanatou, United Kingdom
– Ayse Destina Yalcin, Turkey
These are the most remarkable congress statistics:
The top ten countries from which the congress participants originated from were:
1. Germany (635)
2. France (383)
3. Turkey (388)
4. Switzerland (290)
5. United Kingdom (242)
6. Italy (239)
7. Russia (226)
8. Greece (212)
9. Spain (204)
10. Romania (192)
50.52% of the congress participants were sponsored by companies. The majority of the survey participants were not a member of the EFNS or ENS (62.10%).
There were slightly more male (54.39%) than female (45.61%) participants. Most of them were between 31 and 60 years old. (31-40 – 26.13%, 41-50 – 26.05% and 51-60 – 22.14%) years old. (see diagrammes age, gender)
The majority of the survey participants were neurologists (86.02%) and had either an MD- (62.66%) or PhD-degree (16.46%) (see diagramme: Primary Specialty, Professional Profile).
Reasons to come to the congress were mostly the scientific programme topics (44.86%), presenting of the participants’ own work (20,43%) and the Teaching Courses (14.43%). A lot of the attendees also mentioned that they came to the congress because of the location (Istanbul), the great variety of the lectures, the networking with participants from all over the world and the international prestige of the congress.
The sessions with the most attendance were the Symposia (86.44%), the Poster Sessions (83.28%), the Satellite Symposia (61.85%) and the Focused Workshops (59.39%). Several Symposia had more than 700 participants and some of the Interactive Sessions, as well as the Focused Workshops had more than 450.
Most participants found the sessions well (40.08%) or very well (30.80%) delivered and thought the time for discussion was good/satisfying (35.18%) or very good/satisfying (28.93%). (see diagrammes Qs1&2)
The majority of the participants found the quality of the presented posters good (31.92%) or average (28.79%) and said the poster sessions were interesting (30.71%) or rather interesting (27.27%). (see diagrammes Qs 3&4)
On a scale from 1-5, “excellent” – “bad” – )…
…. most participants found the organisation and structure of the congress excellent (39.44%) (1) or very good (31.52%). (see diagramme Q5)
…. 31.24% of the participants thought the networking event was good and 28.84% thought it was very good. (see diagramme Q6)
77.84% said they felt the informal talk with colleagues and the networking were an important part of the congress.
When asked about their general feedback of the congress, some of the participants pointed out that they were very pleased with the quality of the congress (48). Unfortunately some people mentioned they thought the food quality was insufficient (18).
When asked what the participants wished for regarding the future EAN congresses, a lot of them (103) had ideas for the scientific programme (i.e. more lectures regarding epilepsy, more Hands-on courses). Some also proposed cities or countries as future congress venues (30). A couple of participants also wished for a higher quality (32) in lectures and a smaller and free printed programme (14).
Altogether we assume that the congress was again a big success. We, at EAN Head Office together with Congrex Switzerland, are currently preparing the Berlin 2015 and Copenhagen 2016 Congresses and will of course incorporate all the information received.
If you, too, wish to send input regarding the congress, please send to headoffice@eaneurology.org or leave a comment below.
