EuGMS Academic Rules for Congress Organizers

Role of the Academic Board

The scientific program of the Congress is under the responsibility of the Academic Board (ACAB) of the EuGMS. This concerns all the different steps in the preparation of the scientific program: Main theme, topics, speakers, invited symposia, core curriculum (in collaboration with EAMA), evaluation of the abstracts, and validation of the sponsored symposia. During the year before the Congress, two members of the National Geriatrics Society will be co-opted on to the academic board for Congress matters with equal status.  These members may represent the opinions and proposals of the local national scientific committee. The Academic Director is the Chair of the Scientific Board of the congresses.

Bid for congress application

The EuGMS Congress is organized by the EuGMS in collaboration with the local National Academic Geriatrics Society, if any.  If there is more than one proposal to organize a EuGMS meeting in a certain year, than a selection process will start to identify the best candidate. The role of Academic Board is to evaluate and to rate the scientific validity of the programme among the various country bids, after an open discussion. The Academic director will report to the executive board and General Assembly the results of the Academic Board deliberation. He/she will explain the results. The Academic Board can exclude from further consideration any bid that is not considered to reach the right standards for a EuGMS congress

Congress program and content

The knowledge generated by each Congress is the property of the EuGMS.

The chosen topic/title of the congress has to:

• Be justified as a (future) important topic in geriatric medicine
• Be interesting for an international audience
• Recognized by international known experts in the field
• Have a rationale to be presented in a summary abstract
• Be consistent with a programme where the majority of the proceedings will relate to advances in the broad range of geriatric medicine

Program organisation

The program will include:

• submitted symposia, sent by individuals, special interest groups, and other academic societies, international networks after an open call, and selected by the Scientific Board
• invited symposia, planned by the congress Scientific Board, and will broadly cover the main congress topic and  a wide array of geriatric topics
• sponsored symposia, in collaboration with industrial companies and validated by the congress Scientific Board.
• oral and poster presentations of original research works, selected by the Scientific Board
• lectures from invited speakers

Core curriculum

Its organisation is mandatory, as a separate session running independently

It is recommended to ask geriatricians from the organizing country, as well as the EuGMS boards’ members, to give the lectures (for avoiding costs)

Repetition of topics from at least the two previous EuGMS congresses should be avoided

Speakers “1”

Maximum 25% (optimal 20%) of the speakers will come from the organizing country. The rest of the speakers will be chosen to represent a wide array of European countries, based on scientific merits. Whenever a geriatrician shows expertise in a given topic, he/she will be preferred to specialists in other disciplines

Speakers “2”

Only one invited lecture per speaker and per congress is allowed

A few exceptions could be tolerated:

• Second lecture in a sponsored symposium
• Second lecture in the core curriculum

Speaker “3”

The Academic Director and EuGMS President need to agree upon the choice of the keynote speakers at the opening and closing ceremony. The format of these events will be more liberal, to allow for cultural differences in the host country. The closing ceremony will always include a summary of the key scientific messages from the congress by EAMA students and ­­­presentation of the next EuGMS Congress

Chairpersons

Always the last choice to be made; 2 co-chairpersons per session: one from the organizing country and one EuGMS Full/Academic/Executive Board representative (minimize transportation/hotel costs).

Poster rounds

Poster rounds will be organized during the congress, with members of the EuGMS Boards as leaders of the poster discussions

Awards

Poster and oral presentations will be evaluated by members of the Scientific committee and the best presenters will be awarded a prize. There will be one prize per day for oral presentations and one per day for poster presentations. Special thematic awards can be added occasionally.

The preferred date for the congress is the last week of September/first 2 weeks of October.