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25March2021
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16th Congress of ECCO 2021 Virtual: Overview of Scientific and Educational Programmes

Nuha Yassin and Ignacio Catalán-Serra, ECCO News Associate Editors


Nuha Yassin 
© Nuha Yassin
 Ignacio Catalán Serra 2019
Ignacio Catalán-Serra
© Ignacio Catalán-Serra

Dear IBD colleagues and friends,

Warm greetings from the ECCO News Team at the beginning of 2021, after a very challenging year.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has affected everyone in one way or another, we at ECCO have been adapting to the new circumstances.  The ECCO Team have been working hard to continue to uphold the highest standards of care for IBD patients and to provide high-quality research, education and training opportunities.

We have some important announcements to make. Due to the uncertainty over the COVID-19 situation in Europe and around the world, the ECCO Governing Board, in collaboration with the ECCO Office, have taken the very important decision to move from a face-to-face ECCO’21 Congress to a virtual ECCO’21 Congress in order to be able to guarantee deliverability and ensure safety for our ECCO Colleagues and Friends.

The planned details of the virtual congress will be published in due course. We would like to reassure you that the same high standards will be upheld for the virtual congress as for all our previous face-to-face congresses. Let our hearts and minds interact virtually this year, until we can meet again. We are looking forward to a top-quality 16th ECCO Virtual Congress.

The dates for the Scientific Programme, July 8–10, 2021 (Thursday to Saturday), will remain the same, but the Educational Programme will take place earlier, on July 2–3, 2021 (Friday and Saturday) in order to allow for a seamless programme with no parallel sessions and to cater for all delegates. We kindly ask you to have a careful look at the ECCO Website for further details.

This year, the Scientific Programme is structured around the main topic “IBD Precise”, where we would like to stress the need for tailored strategies to diagnose and treat IBD in the era of -omics and newly available effective drugs.

The Scientific Programme of the 16th Congress of ECCO is tailored to provide attendees with a unique opportunity to learn from the world’s leading specialists in IBD from all areas, including basic science and translational and clinical medicine. It will offer a clear practical approach and cutting-edge focus.

The programme includes all scientific sessions and oral presentations of the best abstracts of the Congress. As every year, the Congress registration fee includes access to all scientific sessions.

Here are some of the highlights of the programme:

  • Sophisticated strategies within reach
  • Safety first?
  • Hot and (almost) happening
  • Next generation diagnostics
  • The young and the old
  • Bottoms behaving badly
  • Milestones in clinical care
  • IBD horizons
  • Basic science: The microbiome as game changer in IBD?
  • CD and UC: Similar disease burden and treatment goals? Is it the organ or the disease process?
  • Personalised medicine
  • ECCO Lecture

A detailed version of the Scientific Programme can be found here: ECCO'21 Scientific Programme

The Educational Programme of our 16th Congress of ECCO will also be held virtually. The programme offers a wide range of courses targeting ECCO’s different interest groups, including young gastroenterologists, surgeons, paediatricians, pathologists, IBD Nurses, dietitians, allied health professionals and scientists. As usual, the Educational Programme will start prior to the official start of the ECCO Congress, and please remember that this year it will take place a week earlier, from July 2 to 3, 2021.  

This year’s Educational Programme will cover many different interest areas and will include the elaboration of clinical guidelines, two imaging  courses offered in collaboration with ESGAR, a School for Clinical Trialists and our Basic Science and SciCom workshops. An overview of these activities can be found below.

You can feast your eyes on the Educational Programme by clicking on the links below:

We are working hard to ensure that this excellent meeting is as exciting and stimulating in the new virtual format as it has been face to face. We will be maintaining the high-quality content and interactions so as to reach groups interested in IBD all over the world.

We are counting on everyone’s contribution to make the 16th Virtual Congress of ECCO a great success.

We look forward to seeing you all online in July!

Stay safe!

Ignacio and Nuha

Posted in ECCO News, Congress News, ECCO'21, Volume 16, Issue 1