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Looking Ahead: Record Abstracts, Europe MiniHub & Community Connections
As the winter holiday period passes, with the January construction meeting come and gone, I hope that your thoughts are turning to our annual meeting in Hawai’i this coming May. Congratulations to those with accepted abstracts, and thank you for submitting your work to us.
This year, we had a record number of abstracts (>8000) submitted for the Hawai’i meeting—a very encouraging sign of the vitality and health of our science and our Society. Unfortunately, higher submission numbers has resulted in a lower acceptance rate of just over 60%. However, I believe that we have a great scientific and education program lined up, and we will have a really fantastic meeting.
And of course, the Hawai’i convention centre is just THE BEST. What a place to have a meeting: open air, breezy corridors! Wonderful. Registration is now open, so book your place in Honolulu.
As you are aware, the Society moves the annual meeting around the globe from year to year to facilitate the participation of our international community. In 2026, for example, we are in Cape Town, South Africa. For those people who are unable to, or do not wish to travel the very long distance to Hawai’i in 2025, we have set up a MiniHub in Europe. This in-person meeting will allow some of the personal interaction and participation of the main meeting missing from virtual attendance. The MiniHub is in Lille, northern France, and if you would like to attend, registration is now open. We are limited to 100 places, and we need sufficient registration by March 12th to give the final green light to the hub. Book your place now!
Like many of you, our Society is facing financial stresses. Our costs have increased by 30% since 2017, yet we have not raised our membership or registration fees. We continue to scrutinise our activity and make sure we are focusing on value for money for our members.
We are also acutely aware of the funding uncertainty that is currently facing our friends and colleagues in the US. This situation is a real threat to our science and progress as an MR community.
I am happy to report that there is a lot of activity going on behind the scenes. Over the next 12 months, we hope you will be able to benefit from a refreshed website and the launch of Higher Logic. This should greatly improve the communication between our members and between Central Office and members going forward.
Watch this space!
Margaret A. Hall-Craggs, M.D.
2024-2025 ISMRM President
