Abstract
For some years now, I am having the pleasure of serving as a member of the scientific programme committee of UEG Week. I consider this a privilege because UEG Week has grown to become one of the world's largest, and in my mind finest, gastroenterology and hepatology meetings. It is truly exciting to be involved in the process of making the programme for such a big and outstanding meeting. As the primary aim of UEG Week is to discuss and disseminate scientific developments in gastroenterology and hepatology, the scientific programme committee plays a pivotal role in the success of the event. Each year the committee, now under the enthusiastic and expert direction of Magnus Simrén, sets out to develop a programme that not only provides the best state-of-the-art overviews of the scientific developments in all relevant fields but also attracts the very best original studies for presentation. We believe that, over the years, UEG Week has achieved a substantial increase in not only volume but also quality of new research presented at its meeting.
The first meeting of the scientific programme committee for the upcoming UEG Week, to be held in Vienna from October 18 – 22, 2014, took place in March 2013. During its first meeting, the committee developed the framework for the three-day core programme (Monday through Wednesday). One of the issues that the committee took into consideration was that overlap with topics of the Postgraduate Teaching (taking place on Saturday and Sunday) had to be avoided as much as possible. In two subsequent meetings, the programme was polished and fine-tuned, the selection of faculty members was finalized and sessions and talks were given their final titles.
During the entire process of programme development, the committee aimed to meet several desiderata. One of these was to achieve a good balance between basic, translational and clinical science. Every effort was made to design symposia in which interaction between basic and clinical scientists is encouraged. For this purpose a special lecture series entitled ‘‘Today's Science Tomorrow's Medicine’’ was introduced, among others. Several sessions were designed that are centered around debates on contentious issues, allotting 10 minutes to each of two speakers whose mission is to make clear why they are “pro” or “con” a specific issue. Other sessions were made “case-based” because a format that departs from a clinical problem has been found to optimize the efficacy of information exchange in clinical symposia. Another aim of the committee was to strive for geographic balance in the invited faculty, and not to forget, for greater gender balance. Special sessions named “East meets West” were included in the programme to provide a platform for exchange of information between European, Middle Eastern and Far Eastern colleagues. The “Round Table Discussions”, taking place at lunch time, were found to be very attractive in recent years and these will therefore form an important part of UEG Week Vienna 2014.
By the time this article is printed, abstract submission has closed and the extensive panel of abstract reviewers has done its work. In June, the scientific committee will come together for the last time to arrange the selected abstracts into poster sessions and into the many sessions with oral presentations. As in previous years, the poster sessions will constitute an essential part of UEG Week 2014. These sessions offer researchers and clinicians the optimal circumstances to meet and to discuss the results of their research at length and in depth. Prompted by technological developments and encouraged by comments from attendees, further improvements to the poster presentations were achieved by introducing more possibilities to view posters electronically. These new display formats will also be utilized for improved poster rounds. As mentioned above, we expect that even more and better original studies will be submitted for presentation during UEG Week 2014 than was already the case in previous years. Numerous prizes, for the best submitted abstracts, for the best oral free papers and for top posters will assist in attracting talent to our meeting, as will national scholar awards and travel grants for young basic and clinical researchers.
I am sure that you will agree with me that there are more reasons than ever to attend UEG Week 2014!
I hope to see you in Vienna!
To find out more visit: www.ueg.eu/week
André Smout
UEG Scientific Committee Member
Professor of Neurogastroenterology and Motility
Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Academic Medical Centre
Amsterdam
The Netherlands