The 2nd Congress of the European Academy of Neurology, held in Copenhagen, May 28-31, 2016, was attended by a total of 5521 participants. About 1500 (27.2%) participants filled in the survey to receive their certificate of attendance.
Ten participants out of those who completed the survey, won the congress lottery and will receive an EAN package. The winners are as follows:
- Abdenour Abbaoui
- Moshgan Amiri
- Guillaume BAILLE
- Frans-André Boogers
- Noelia García Lax
- Miguel Grunho
- Lia Leitão
- Mona Nada
- Jean Médard Zola
- Eva Zupanic
These are the most remarkable congress statistics:
The top ten countries from which the congress participants originated from were:
- Denmark (403)
- Switzerland (363)
- Germany (355)
- Italy (313)
- United Kingdom (299)
- France (286)
- The Netherlands (215)
- Spain (211)
- Turkey (189)
- Portugal (179)
40.3% of the congress participants taking part in the survey were sponsored by companies. The majority of the survey participants were not a member of the EAN (63.4%). Hint: If you are a member of your national neurological society, you are automatically a member of EAN. https://www.ean.org/National-Neurological-Societies.2672.0.html
There were slightly more male (56.4%) than female (43.6%) survey participants.
Most of the participants were between 31 and 60 years old. (31-40 – 26.23%, 41-50 – 23.77% and 51-60 – 22.71%) years old. The majority of the survey participants were neurologists (86.01%).
320 residents received a bursary to participate in the congress. Hint: If you are a resident, you can enjoy EAN membership benefits plus additional activities of the Resident and Research Fellow Section https://www.ean.org/Resident-and-Research-Fellow.2676.0.html via RRFS membership.
The top reasons to attend the 2nd EAN congress were:
- The Scientific Programme (29.13%)
- Teaching Courses (15.98%)
- To present my work (14.54%)
- Networking (13.78%)
- Key note speakers (7.4%)
- CME credits (6.17%)
- Conference venue/location (5.78%)
The majority of the participants (71.14%) found the standard of the presentations to be satisfactory or very satisfactory.
1933 Abstracts have been submitted to the Copenhagen congress. Out of these, the Programme Committee accepted 88.6%. In the end, 154 oral presentations and 1400 posters were presented. Again, the posters were presented electronically with more than 90 sessions each discussed by a chairperson. All presenters had the possibility to show their work throughout the congress and to make appointments with their peers via the poster system. All posters can be found on the Copenhagen website here: https://www.eaneurology.org/copenhagen2016/Welcome-to-Copenhagen-2016.2122.0.html
A separate evaluation on poster sessions will be published in the next issue of EAN pages.
The quality of poster presentations was found satisfactory by 29.6%, very satisfactory by 25.14% and fair by 15.51%. However, improving the environment – especially the sound – as well as better technical support has been requested. We are also happy to inform that we were able to accommodate the popular request from last year – to appoint a chairperson to every poster session – which has worked out well and will be continued.
66.5% found it easy to come in contact with delegates from other countries and 28.4% found that the networking events were very satisfactory. However, it was requested to have more networking events – for 80.8% the informal talk with colleagues is a very rewarding aspect of the congress.
When asked about their general feedback of the congress, many of the participants pointed out that they were very pleased with the quality of the congress. It was, however, requested to have more time for discussions and questions during the sessions. Unfortunately, some people mentioned that the EAN congress app was impractical and should be user-friendlier.
When asked what the participants wished for regarding the future EAN congresses, a lot of them had ideas for the scientific program (i.e. topics suggestions).
Please note that the TC evaluation report will be published in the next issue of EAN pages.
Altogether, the 2nd EAN congress was a great success. The EAN Programme Committee, Congrex Switzerland and we, EAN Head Office, are currently preparing the 3rd EAN Congress in Amsterdam 2017 as well as the 4th Congress in Lisbon 2018 and will of course try to incorporate all the improvement suggestions received.
If you, too, wish to send input regarding the congress, please send a message to headoffice@ean.org or leave a comment below.
