32nd Congress of the ESP and XXXIII International Congress of the IAP

The 32nd Congress of the European Society of Pathology (ESP) and the XXXIII International Congress of the International Academy of Pathology was held as a joint, all online event on 6 - 8 December 2020. The preparations for the joint meeting to be held in Glasgow were well advanced when, during Spring 2020, it became evident that the COVID19 pandemic necessitated either re-scheduling or cancellation of almost all professional meetings planned for the latter part of the year. A joint decision between the ESP, IAP and the meeting organiser, CPO Hanser GmbH, was made to hold the meeting as an online “virtual” event. 

While everyday professional communication was rapidly and successfully adopting communication via MS Teams, Zoom, Skype and other online platforms, experience of organising and hosting large online events was not in abundance. However, all those involved rose to the task, with creation of a meeting platform that allowed speakers to provide pre-recorded content and Q&A sessions at the end of specifically timed sessions across up to six different virtual rooms. 

Short of some initial “glitches” at the very start of the conference on the morning of 6th December, the conference ran smoothly, to plan and time-table, helped by the fact that pre-recording reduced speakers overrunning! The meeting achieved close to 4800 registrations from 116 countries, likely influenced by a reduction in registration fee and no travel costs. As the meeting progressed, those suspicious of the informative value of  a purely online event became reassured. Updates in all aspects of pathology were provided by over 400 international speakers, attending and supporting the educational sessions from their work places or homes across the world. The 77 live sessions provided over 7700 hours of talks. Almost 1300 electronic posters were submitted. 

Best Poster Prizes 

You can view the posters, plus recordings from all congress awardees here or by selecting any poster above.  

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As this new era of online educational events during the COVID19 pandemic has shown, interaction with delegates in Q&A sessions frequently exceeded that seen in the conventional meetings as the system allowed questions to be asked anonymously and during the talks, then collated for speakers to answer. Also, a legacy of the meeting is an enormous educational content which remains available online for study and future reference until March 2021 on the conference website.  

Finally, during the meeting, the usual scientific and social interaction between colleagues and friends transferred onto social media. And not all the après-conference interaction was completely absent. The meeting ended with an online session where glasses were raised and toasts heard from different parts of the world for a tremendously successful educational event, and we look forward to the XXXIVth conference due to be held in Sydney in October 2022. 

From the BDIAP, special thanks go to Ray McMahon as conference president, Ian Roberts and Andrew Nicholson from Council, and Karen Oien and Fiona Roberts from Glasgow, who made up the BDIAP members of the Scientific Committee, as well as Sam and Nabila for their organisational skills. We also thank the staff at the SECC in Glasgow who spent so much time up to 2020 preparing for the on-site meeting, only for it to be taken away by the pandemic.