President’s Corner #45: Seasons of Change

Seasons of Change

Here in the northern part of the United States, we are already starting to see the trees start to change color, the days are noticeably shorter, and the temperature has definitely cooled down. We’ve officially entered fall. But those of us who do MRI for a living know that we’re also entering one of the busiest seasons of the year: abstract submission season. I hope that you are all managing the time well and getting ready to submit the best research you’ve ever done!

As I mentioned in my last blog post, we have been working on a completely new abstract submission system called ECHO. You can find it at https://echo.ismrm.org. Unlike the previous system that was just for the annual meeting, this will also be available for workshops and should improve the workflow for everyone in the ISMRM. ECHO provides a straightforward process for submitting abstracts, with clear steps for registration and disclosure management. This system will also be the way you register as a reviewer for the annual meeting abstracts. Because it’s new, I encourage you to at least log in early so that your user account can be established and so that you can see the requirements for submitting an abstract. If you encounter issues, report them via this form and we will do everything we can to rectify the situation…though that might be impossible 5 minutes before the submission deadline! One feature of the new system is that it automatically opens and closes the submission portal, so there will be no emailing Sally at the Central Office to get your abstract in after the deadline! Don’t wait for the last minute!

Unfortunately, another change that is coming is a slight increase in our ISMRM membership rates for the coming year. These rates were held constant from 2017 until 2023, when they were actually reduced. A similar change will be happening for the annual meeting registration fees, which haven’t changed since 2016. We were only able to keep these constant for so long through the incredible work of the Central Office staff. However, as most everything in the world these days, our costs have gone up to the point where we have to do an adjustment. As Past President Margaret Hall-Craggs mentioned in her remarks at the last annual meeting, the Board of Trustees, the Finance Committee, and our treasurer, Joe Ackerman, have been focused on this for a while, and thus the plan that they’ve come up with is very reasonable in my mind. Both ISMRM membership rates and annual meeting registration rates will go up around 5% for the coming year. For example, full member annual fees will go from US$220 to US$230 per year. After that, we should expect to see small changes in these rates that are consistent with global inflation. These small changes help us continue offering high-value member benefits—free access to virtual educational meetings, discounted workshop and annual meeting registrations, and connections across our 7,000+ strong global community.

Along these lines, as I mentioned in my last post, it’s also the season for our web page to change. Keep an eye out for this update in just a few days! The new design will give us so many new opportunities to connect both within the Society and with non-members throughout the globe.

Speaking of connections, I can’t wait to see you all in Cape Town! Katy and I just got back a few weeks ago and you can read all about it in Katy’s latest blog, which you can find here: https://blog.ismrm.org/2025/09/23/my-site-visit-to-cape-town/. I did most of the video on the trip and came home with over 85GB of video, so we had to do a lot of editing to get it down to a reasonable amount to share with you. I hope that you can watch the four videos linked at the bottom of Katy’s post so that you can get an idea of the kinds of things you can do when visiting Cape Town. I personally had such a great time that I can’t wait to get back there!

I wish you the best of luck with all of your abstract preparations! I hope that abstract season is as stress free as possible. I look forward to seeing you all soon!

Echo is now open – Submit your Abstracts!

Mark A. Griswold, Ph.D.
2025-2026 ISMRM President