ENS 2013: 3,000 neurologists meet in Barcelona
The intent is that Europe will now have just one international neurological association in future. The two European societies – the ENS and the ENFS – will merge to create the new European Academy of Neurology (EAN), ENS President Prof Claudio L. Bassetti announced at the ENS Congress in Barcelona.
Barcelona, 10 June 2013 – For over two decades, Europe has had two neurological societies, the European Neurological Society (ENS) and the European Federation of Neurological Societies (EFNS). That is meant to change starting in 2014. ENS President Prof Claudio L. Bassetti (Bern University Hospital) reported at the 23rd Meeting of the ENS in Barcelona that the ENS and the EFNS have agreed to this move and are now working to implement their decision as expeditiously as possible.
The two societies pursue different yet highly compatible goals. The ENS was modelled on the American Academy of Neurology so the members are individual medical experts, not national neurological societies. The activities revolved and continue to revolve around continuing training and education and on congresses and conferences. The ENS, inaugurated in 1986, publishes the Journal of Neurology and staged its first congress in Nice in 1988. It has successfully followed this approach ever since. The EFNS was founded in 1991 at a congress in Vienna as a federation of national neurological societies. It publishes the European Journal of Neurology and has created a representative online library of guidelines on neurological indications. In addition to staging congresses and continuing education and training events, the EFNS also considers itself a political advocate for its members. It is part of the European Brain Council and has pushed for more brain research in Europe before the European institutions, among others.
Prof Bassetti: “It is a logical step for European neurology to join forces. The ENS and the EFNS have already worked together successfully on repeated occasions in the recent past. For example, they collaborated in organising the European Specialist Exam and worked together with the British Joint Neuroscience Council on eBrain, the world’s largest e-learning project in the neurosciences.”
Based on these experiences, the two organisations decided to put their collaboration on a formal basis. They signed an agreement that governs the merger of the ENS and the EFNS to create the European Academy of Neurology (EAN).
Prof Bassetti: “We will hold a joint meeting of the ENS and the ENFS in Istanbul in 2014 and establish the EAN on that time. The first EAN Congress is scheduled for Germany in 2015. Along with all the other advantages of this future joint project, I see a big opportunity in the EAN for congresses and conferences in particular. The joint society has the potential for making these events even more attractive. We must not forget that we are competing internationally as conference organisers, in our case with the United States. As a joint European platform, we are also more attractive for participants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East.”
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