One thing you can say about the ECR is that every year there is always something new. The ESR loves to innovate, and this year is a great example of that, with a number of changes in place that will make ECR 2015 an even better congress experience than before. Here we take you through some of the most important new additions, as well as a couple of other vital things to take note of.

The ESR Walk of Fame, in the entrance hall at ECR 2015, features some of the stars of the society’s first ten years

1. The ESR’s Tenth Anniversary
The European Society of Radiology was founded in February 2005, so we’re celebrating our tenth anniversary at the ECR. This will be most noticeable in the entrance hall, where you’ll be able to take the ESR Walk of Fame, featuring the stars of the ESR’s first ten years, as well as some of the society’s brightest moments. You’ll also be able to collect your own star from the membership desk (in front of the big flower pot) and stick it to our ESR Wall of Fame

2. Electronic Evaluation
This year, ECR session evaluation and CME acquisition has gone completely digital, saving a huge amount of paper and making the whole system a lot more flexible. Delegates can now complete an online questionnaire for every session, which is accessible via the official ECR 2015 App (available from Tuesday, March 3), on more than 160 laptops in the ECR Live & EPOS Lounge, at the registration counters, and at special CME & Evaluation terminals on the first level.

3. New Session Formats
The number of different educational session types has grown and grown over the years. This year, the programme has been simplified, with the majority now grouped under the heading E³ – European Excellence in Education and divided into five branches reflecting the different stages of an individual’s professional career. Congress President, Prof. Bernd Hamm explains the concept here.

4. Best Paper Awards
Not only are there more scientific sessions this year, but at the end of each one, smartphones and mobile device users will be able to vote for their favourite presentation via an online voting tool. The most popular presentation will be awarded a certificate by the session moderators.

The ESR is launching its new eLearning platform at ECR 2015

5. Education On Demand
The ESR is launching its brand new eLearning platform Education On Demand at ECR 2015. The platform is packed with online educational resources to suit radiologists at every stage of their career, but most significantly for attendees, it also hosts the self-assessment tests for numerous E3 sessions (see point 1, above) at the congress. Bookmark learn.myesr.org and prepare to assess yourself!

6. ECR Live
Just as last year, more than 1,500 presentations will be streamed online during the congress, completely free of charge via ECR Live. And, just like last year, most of those presentations will also be available to watch on demand from the following day onward. Whether you couldn’t make it to Vienna and want to keep up with what’s going on at Europe’s biggest imaging meeting, or you’re at the congress and want to catch something you missed, there’s just one place you need to go: live.myesr.org

7. Social Media Wall
Once again, the ECR Social Media Wall brings all ECR-related social media activity together in one place. Every time someone uses the #ECR2015 hashtag on Twitter, that tweet will appear on all of the many screens throughout the congress venue, as well as the online stream. Plus, we again have an individual wall for every room being streamed on ECR Live. To join the conversation in any room, just add the room name to the hashtag (e.g. #ECR2015B, #ECR2015D1, #ECR2015MB5) or use ECR Live’s integrated chat function.

The ECR represents a unique mixture of tradition, innovation and entertainment. Every year the Congress Committee and the ESR Office try to introduce some innovations to attendees. Some of these innovations are quite big and remarkable, others could be quite small and almost invisible. For example, let’s look back and recall the history of the Electronic Poster Online System (EPOS) at the ECR. In 2003, when EPOS was born and launched for the first time, there were some sceptics saying that it was a step back compared to sessions with traditional paper posters. But EPOS turned out to be extremely successful. Today we cannot imagine the ECR without EPOS. And after more than 10 years of EPOS, we consider it a unique online scientific and educational database. Seeing this success, other medical congresses have started to follow the new standard of poster presentations established by the ECR.

Read more…

During and after ECR 2013, one of the questions we were asked most frequently by viewers of our online streaming service, ECR Live, was ‘where can I watch a recording of session x?’

At the time, we weren’t able to give any definite answers. We were happy that so many people were interested, just as we were delighted with the success of the project, which saw more than 1,400 lectures broadcast online in 13 separate live streams, but we didn’t have firm plans for what to do with the recordings. Now we do.

We’ve gathered together as many lectures from ECR 2013 as possible and we’ll be presenting them in a series called ‘ECR Rec’, here on the ESR blog throughout the coming months. Naturally, we wanted to make sure to obtain the speakers’ permission before including their material, so the collection only includes lectures from speakers who chose to be a part of the project, but it’s a great cross-section of the ECR 2013 programme, and we’re really proud to be able to present all of the videos completely free of charge.

You can find the first two recordings in the series here:

ECR 2013 Rec: Muscle elastography in patients affected by multiple sclerosis #B-0313 #SS510

ECR 2013 Rec: Crohn’s disease activity: correlation of inflammatory mediators with overall small-bowel motility #B-0198 #SS201a

Keep a close eye on the ESR Blog to see each recording as it’s published.

If you have any comments about the project or would like to request a particular lecture, please let us know in the comments section below.

We are proud to introduce ECR Live; bringing you 1,400 presentations live from the ECR in 13 separate video streams. Each stream comes with its own chat feature, so you can discuss sessions with other viewers and even ask presenters questions. It’s easy to register, simple to use, and completely free of charge. Join here: live.myESR.org