Dear SIOP members,  

Every year, we ask our Congress participants to complete a survey and provide vital feedback on how we can improve the event. This year we received 560 survey responses, 94% of whom said that the Congress was as good or better than expected. Thank you very much for offering your valuable time to help us better your experience.  

Our team takes a great deal of care to analyse our members suggestions and evaluate how to enhance the experience for future meetings. Here is what we have implemented. 

The main area our members noted for improvement was regarding the availability of food and beverages during breaks. We make a strong effort to offer an affordable registration rate which has not increased substantially in recent years, so we face the dilemma of how to offer more refreshments while keeping the cost to you as low as possible. We have been thinking about alternative ways to offer more to those who would like it and so, in Ottawa, the venue is conveniently attached to a big shopping area where you will find a variety of options without sacrificing time away from the conference sessions. In addition, we encourage you to visit our exhibitor’s area and sponsored lunch symposiums where the people who generously support our congress will be happy to receive you in their booths with a warm cup of coffee. Finally, our 2023 venue offers free hydration stations to refill water using recyclable materials.   

Some delegates requested an expedited visa procedure to facilitate access to the host country. Whilst we did everything we could to accelerate the process for Barcelona, it was not always possible to help our colleagues receive their visa on time. Unfortunately, we are heavily reliant on government processing times and have very limited influence to improve in this respect. As always, we are happy to provide an invitation letter to those who need it, but our key piece of advice is to do all the visa paperwork well in advance for Canada. 

We have decided to continue our virtual congress, so delegates who are not able to travel can still benefit from the educational contents only the SIOP Congress provides. We are committed to further improving the virtual experience with specific digital content. We feel this is an important aspect to making our Congress more accessible.

Following feedback from our attendees, we will make some changes to improve the impact and effectiveness of the poster sessions. We plan to offer a more curated “physical” poster session, spotlighting only the highest-rated posters. We would also like to take this opportunity to encourage members to use medical images sparingly and only when absolutely necessary; please bear in mind our Congress is also attended by non-medical persons who may find shocking images distressing.  

The Ottawa venue will offer a family room for people with children, providing a private and comfortable space at the meeting as requested by our 2022 attendees.  

Our Congress attracts large numbers and as a result, queues and delays at the registration desk may be unavoidable. While we will do as much as possible to speed up the sign in process and ensure a high number of people available to help you in Ottawa, please arrive early to avoid long queues and missing the opening presentations. 

We take your comments very seriously and are committed to doing everything we can to respond to your requests. As a result of this collaborative process, we are confident the upcoming SIOP 2023 Congress in Ottawa, Canada, will be a great scientific and social success.  

We look forward to receiving you there!