The location and the venue of the upcoming European Congresses of Pathology will be discussed and decided at the General Assembly of the European Society of Pathology several years prior to the actual congress. The ESP’s Scientific Committee decides on the actual programme of each congress. We, as an ESP Working Group, discuss topics and ideas more than 1 year prior to the actual meeting and hand in a programme proposal.  There is no fixed number of slots for each Working Group. We aim for high quality proposals and up-to-date topics. In the next years, there may be a change from organ-centered (i.e. Working Group-centered) to  topic-centered symposia (e.g. autoimmunity, dysplasia, infection, …) allowing much more interaction between the Working Groups.

We try to involve colleagues from the host country as much as possible. As nephropathology needs a strong clinico-pathological correlation, we regularly invite clinicians to our sessions. We also integrate basic science because we feel that understanding the pathogenesis of renal disease will help us to provide better biopsy diagnoses.

Once the Scientific Committee has reached its decision, we will approach potential speakers. Invited pathology speakers will benefit from a reduced registration fee, but travel and accomodation costs will not be covered. The registration fee is waived for non-pathologist speakers. Our Working Group has a small budget (usually around € 2’000/year) to support travel and accomodation expenses for the latter. Under the current ESP rules, travel costs within Europe up to € 400 (outside Europe € 700) plus 2 nights accomodation in a congress hotel can be reimbursed. The ESP Headquarter has provided us with an example-letter for these initial informal invitations. Prior to the end of the year, we will have to return the completed proposals including speaker names and titles. The official invitations to all speakes and chairs will then be send by the congress organisation in the spring.

The ESP-Council does not approve satellite meetings! If we want to expand the number of sessions, we will have to make very good programme proposals and organize joint sessions with other Working Groups.

If you are an ESP member and want to get involved in the congress organization, please contact Helmut Hopfer.