European Congress of Radiology (ECR)

The European Congress of Radiology (ECR) is an international radiology meeting, held every year in Vienna, Austria, always at the end of February or early March. It is organized by the European Society of Radiology (ESR). It is the second largest radiological meeting in the world (after the RSNA Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting).

History

The European Congress of Radiology was first held in 1967 in Barcelona . It was organized by the European Association of Radiology (EAR) and the Congres de Radiologie des Pays de Culture Latine. From 1971, the EAR was the sole organizer. Initially the ECR was held every four years, and in a different European city every meeting.

In 1987, at the Congress in Lisbon, it was decided to make the meeting biennial, move it to March, and choose a single city which could be used for every future meeting. Since 1991 the Congress has been held in Vienna in Austria. Vienna was chosen due to its central European location, and therefore relative ease to reach for those coming from both within and without Europe. March was selected because it is low season and therefore hotel prices are lower than at other times of the year (the meeting had previously been held in September).

Since 1999 the meeting has been held annually and continues to be held in Vienna.

In 2020, the 32 annual meeting, originally scheduled for 11-15 March was postponed due to the outbreak of COVID-19. This is the first ever time that the meeting has had to be postponed . On the revised publicity posters, the meeting has been rebranded as the "ECR 2020: Summer edition" . The meeting is to be an online-only 'virtual' congress.

Meetings

• 1967: Barcelona, Spain
• 1971: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• 1975: Edinburgh, United Kingdom
• 1979: Hamburg, Germany
• 1983: Bordeaux, France
• 1987: Lisbon, Portugal
• 1991-1999: biennially in Vienna, Austria
• 1999-2020: annually in Vienna, Austria

Future meetings

• 32meeting: 15-19 July 2020 (postponed)