Dear colleagues and friends,

In light of the worldwide COVID-19 outbreak and after careful evaluation of its potential impact on the planned EUSOBI Annual Scientific Meeting 2020 in Malmö, Sweden from October 1-3, it is with regret to inform you about the decision that EUSOBI 2020 will not go ahead as a physical meeting this year.

This decision is based not only on the current situation, but also on the uncertainty we all face regarding the months to come. The safety and well-being of our members, faculty, friends and the entire community is of utmost importance and as such this heavy-hearted decision was necessary. The value of our Annual Scientific Meeting relies on our community and EUSOBI wants to guarantee a safe and outstanding meeting, which seems to be impossible for the moment. We feel that this is the socially responsible decision, in view of the on-going concerns related to the communal health risks posed by large gatherings and the need for continued social distancing.

In the upcoming weeks we will be exploring the various options for providing an online programme that will satisfy our needs as a community for scientific and educational exchange. While we’re very disappointed that we won’t be able to meet in person in Malmö this year, we might use this as an opportunity to a new kind of meeting that is not only refreshing in its format, but also reduces our academic carbon footprint.

We would like to thank you for your enthusiasm to participate in our meeting and hope that we can count on your understanding in these difficult times. We were particularly excited about this year’s programme and, therefore, hope to be able to reschedule most of it to 2021 or provide selected sessions online.

We would very much welcome your thoughts and ideas as well as your active participation. For this reason, we have prepared a very short survey and would highly appreciate if you can spend some minutes by providing your feedback: EUSOBI 2020 SURVEY
The survey will be closed on Friday, May 15, at noon.

Last but not least, we are happy to inform you that Malmö as one of our congress destinations won’t disappear in the future planning. Due to the flexibility of the conference centre, we were already able to postpone our Malmö Meeting to 2022. Mark your calendar with the next years’ meetings:

EUSOBI 2021: Valencia/Spain; September 23-25
EUSOBI 2022: Malmö/Sweden; September 29-October 1

We wish you all the best and hope you stay healthy.

Yours sincerely,
EUSOBI Executive Board