Dear EAN members, friends, and colleagues,
As the Editor of eanNews, I am delighted to have the privilege to occasionally address you all directly in our monthly main article, the Executive Page. After more than four years in this exciting and fulfilling role, I am keen to use this opportunity to look back briefly on the recent evolution of eanNews and spotlight some of our improvements and changes.
It has always been my view that the aim of eanNews is to provide a focal point for our community of neurologists in Europe, providing opinions about the latest cutting edge research from EAN experts, curated by our editorial team; keeping readers up to date on news from within the EAN family; and sharing political and organisational developments, including advocacy activities, and updates from the elected leaders of this community. This is the basic philosophy I and the excellent editorial team have tried to adhere to, while constantly reassessing our output and pushing in new directions. Overall, both my goal and that of the team has been to make eanNews a place where every EAN member can connect with the community and truly feel part of it.
I am proud to have overseen some great positive changes during my years in charge, particularly regarding coverage of research and the use of video, but most obviously the change of name in 2024, from EAN Pages to eanNews to better reflect the purpose and content of the platform, as well as more gradual improvements to make navigation more intuitive and give the front page a cleaner, more modern appearance.
The long-running Research Paper of the Month has been bringing a single outstanding paper to readers’ attention for many years. In 2023 we expanded our focus on research by adding a monthly Research Highlights article, bringing readers several summaries of the most interesting papers that made it onto our shortlist for the Paper of the Month. Offering a broader selection of analyses has enabled our coverage to touch on multiple subspecialties and diseases each month, sourced from a wider range of journals, offering readers a much more detailed snapshot of the research landscape.
We have also tried to augment our coverage with video interviews wherever possible. In fact, we have pursued a general emphasis on video, primarily in the form of interviews, from talking to various figures in the history of the European Journal of Neurology to celebrate its anniversary in 2024, to conversations with named lecturers at consecutive EAN congresses, The latter have served as part of the extensive congress coverage that we provide on eanNews each year, reporting on key sessions from the scientific programme and highlighting some of the important discussions relating to areas such as policy professional issues.
Most recently, we launched a new series of interviews with the patient representatives who sit on EAN Scientific Panels, as a way of highlighting their involvement in the work of those panels, and the valuable perspectives they are able to bring the table. These interviews have also given us some valuable insights into how the patient representatives see their roles and helped us to strengthen the EAN’s relationships with them and the organisations they represent.
At the EAN Congress 2025 in Helsinki back in June, I and several other members of the EAN Communications Committee had the pleasure of talking to the presidents of a number of national neurological societies for interviews that were subsequently published on eanNews. These interviews together with in-person meetings are an excellent way to strengthen bonds with the EAN’s Institutional Members.
Such close bonds with the European neurological community are crucial. A meeting with presidents and delegates from national neurological societies from Europe and beyond, in Brussels on 17 March, to work on how to enhance neurology in Europe, was a great success. It resulted in the presidents of national societies signing the Brussels’ Neurology Declaration, a united commitment to advance brain health, strengthen neurology across Europe, and act jointly on seven shared priorities for the decade ahead.
Another relationship-enhancing series introduced to eanNews under my editorship is the President’s Corner, in which the EAN President, Elena Moro, answers questions submitted by EAN members, friends, and followers on any subject they like. Since its first appearance in January 2025, Prof. Moro has answered more than 60 different questions from our curious community in over 14 articles. This kind of direct communication and community building is exactly what eanNews is all about!
It is of course crucial that eanNews accurately reflects the EAN’s evolving priorities, so as our organisation’s advocacy activity has increased dramatically over the last few years, eanNews has played an important role in promotion and dissemination. Since the launch of the Brain Health Mission (BHM) in 2023, we have done our best to keep our community up to date with the numerous events, training opportunities, and other activities that have emerged under this initiative.
This came to a peak recently for the 2026 Brain Awareness Week, during which the BHM and its strategic partners put on a range of exciting and wonderfully successful events focused around 18 March. Billed as Brain Health Day: Prevention, Policy, Progress, three major events took place: the latest European Brain Health Summit, an opening ceremony for a special Brain Health Mission Exhibition at the European Parliament, and the European Brain Council-led event A European Vision for Brain Health. This fantastic trio of events helped to amplify the call for a coordinated, holisticapproach to addressing mental and neurological health and the interwoven care and research needs that span the full spectrum of brain health. It has been an honour to be able to support this great mission via articles on eanNews. Please read our full report on the day’s events for a great summary: Calls for Coordinated Action on Brain Health in European Parliament on Brain Health Day – eanNews
Editing eanNews is a group effort, and I have the pleasure of leading a particularly excellent editorial team of current and former Communications Committee members, who provide content, suggestions, and expert opinions (namely, Isabella Colonna, Viktoria Papp, Simone Salemme, Agne Straukiene, Raphael Wurm, and EAN Website Editor, Letizia Leocani), supported by the eanNews Manager , Simon Lee. Although, we would not be where we are today without the hard work of all the former editors who established the foundations on which we are building, under the previous identities EAN Pages and Neuropenews, so my thanks go to former editors and co-editors Martin Rakusa, Antonella Macerollo, Tom Jenkins, Elena Moro, Gian Luigi Lenzi and David B. Vodušek.
Serving as eanNews Editor and playing a role in one of the key pillars of the EAN Communication strategy is a rewarding challenge that I truly relish, and I look forward to continuing to help drive the EAN forward along with my fellow committee members.
As a reader and a proud EAN member, I sincerely hope you value eanNews and the content hosted here. If you have any feedback or suggestions, I invite you to get in touch at any time. In the meantime, happy reading!
Best wishes
Benedetta Bodini, eanNews Editor
