Hosting the SIOP Annual Congress
Eligibility
Main Criteria
If your city fulfills all or nearly all of the below criteria, we encourage you to send us your bid, summarising the required information as per the criteria in the bid manual for SIOP congresses:
- The infrastructure for a conference of 2400-2800 delegates exists.
- A core local organising committee (LOC) is named.
- The organisation backing the bid is identified.
- The dates of the meeting are clear and avoid a conflict with other major meetings and recognised religious holidays.
- Housing for delegates is available across the price range.
- The conference centre is easily accessible from the accommodation (preferably an easy walk).
- The city is accessible easily and frequently by air/ground transport.
- The likely cost of attendance at the Congress is acceptable to potential delegates.
- Your city has not recently hosted a SIOP Congress (view archives of previous congresses here).
Geographic Rotation
Congresses used to rotate among SIOP continents: Asia/Oceania/Latin America/Africa, North America, and Europe. As of 2029, we will accept global bids and will not rotate anymore.
Year | Region | City | Country |
2025 | Amsterdam, the Netherlands | ||
2026 | San Antonio, USA | ||
2027 | Sydney, Australia |
Year | Region | City | Country |
2028 | Europe – bidding will open November 2024 | ||
2029 | Global bids welcome – bidding will open November 2025 |
Eligibility to host the SIOP Annual Meeting
Bids to host the SIOP Annual Meeting can be made by any individual member in good standing in collaboration with the local convention centre, and/or tourism bureau to the SIOP Office.
Further details and criteria can be found in the bidding manual.
How are locations selected?
Our Annual Congress destination selection is a complex multi-step decision making process by the SIOP Board of Directors, as the congress income plays a vital role in the financial health and sustainabilty of our society and what we can offer to our members.
Starting with the call for bids and collecting “Letters of Intent”, the SIOP Board narrows down the choices from the submitted applications to a short-list of 3 suitable destinations. Based on this pre-selection, a feasibility study for each venue is prepared based on submission of the full bidding materials.
The SIOP Board of Directors typically takes the following items into account (not in order of importance):
- The scientific community in the Congress country. We evaluate the evidence that the scientific community in the country is willing and sufficiently able to help develop a strong and balanced scientific program with local and international representation jointly with our Scientific Committe and affilicated societies (CCI, IPSO and PROS) as well as the support of the National Paediatric Haemato-Oncology Societies or groups (NaPHOS).
- Scientific exchange. Developing a good program also requires communication with experts all over the world. We look into a strong tradition of efficient scientific exchange between the host country and the global paediatric oncology community.
- Geographical rotation among continents for the Congress.
- Financial Considerations: Venue rental costs, Audio/Visual costs to support recording/hybrid meeting options, Congress venue contract flexibility and T&Cs (e.g. COVID clause), Convention Bureau and city support available, Attractiveness of the country to the pharmaceutical industry (compliance and regulations) as we depend on sponsorship support.
- Logistics and Organization: Suitability of Congress Centre (room capacities), Professionalism of the Congress Centre (modern, services offered), Accessibility/ Connectivity by plane from across the world, Availability of hotel rooms and variety of ratings, Healthy catering options, Range of social venue options, Environmental, CSR and SDG initiatives at the Congress venue, and in the host city.
- Dates the venue is available for our congress (no clash with major religious holidays, preferably Wed – Sat, months of September/October). In particular, please avoid religious holidays (+/- 1 day before and after holidays) such as Jewish High Holidays (Sukkot, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) and Muslim Holidays (Ramadan). Please note that exact dates for such holidays change year to year. A quick google search will give you the exact dates for such holidays for 2028.
- Geopolitical situation in the destination (attractiveness, safety, visa requirements, political stability).
- Economic stability in the destination.
- Costs for attending the Congress: the registration fees are decided by the SIOP Board of Directors taking our multidisciplinary body of delegates into account and are ranging from physicians, to nurses, to Allied Health and other Professionals, parents and survivors and our Young SIOP members coming from HIC/UMIC/LMICs. The SIOP Board of Directors will make sure that the Congress registration fee will be reasonable, that there is a range of good hotel rates (particularly including inexpensive ones), and that travel costs can be kept as low as possible.
- Despite efforts to keep costs low, travel is expensive for young professionals, and for our Global Health Network members. It is therefore important to us, that the Local Organising Committee can guarantee the financial support for our scholarships with funding and can help us identify and communicate budget-friendly housing, restaurants and shops to support our colleagues.
You can review our detailed bidding guidelines incl. venue requirements, timeslines and process on our website here.
The final decision is never an easy one for our Board of Directors, as all 3 shortlisted destinations that attend the congress board meeting, to present their city and venue are perfectly suitable of hosting a succesful Annual Congress. Nevertheless, a decision needs to be made for one destination each year, and pros and cons need to be weighed out carefully by our leadership when they cast their anonymous vote.
We would like to thank all our bidders for their commitment and hard work they have invested in preparing their bids. The SIOP Office will plan an in-depth feedback conference call with all bidders in the coming weeks and encourage them for further bids in the future.