World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering Nice, 14-19 September 1997The world congress was co-organised by the Société Française des Physiciens d'Hôpital and the Club Français des Technologies Biomédicales (one of the Technical Committee of the Société des Électriciens et Électroniciens); it is an event which takes place every three years and NICE'97, follows on from the congress held in San Antonio (Texas, 1988), Kyoto (Japan, 1991), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil, 1994) and precedes the congress to be held in Chicago (USA, 2000), followed by Sydney (Australia, 2003). The first contacts took place with the international authorities (IUPESM, IOMP, IFMBE) at the San Antonio congress ; the project was then adopted at Kyoto, and the contract signed at Rio! It is thanks to the action and support of the entire French scientific medical physics and BME community, that it was possible to hold this congress in France. For such a congress (around 2500 attendees and a 1000m² of technical exhibition), very few congress centres in France are able to offer a sufficiently large site. The Nice-Acropolis site and the attraction of the French Riviera at the end of the summer were sufficient arguments for some of the attendees, though doubtless also attracted by the scientific programme, to come accompanied... This congress aimed to meet the following challenges: to bring together the various scientific tendencies and scientists involved in medical physics and biological and medical engineering to get them to discuss and exchange ideas on the chief advances in fundamental research as well as in everyday applications, including methods and instrumentation for modelling, functional exploration, diagnosis or treatment... and to prepare for the future. Such aims thus ensured that the spectrum of topics covered was extremely broad. This made it necessary to set up a large Scientific Committee — more than 100 colleagues were involved —, co-presided by Jean-Claude Rosenwald (Institut Curie, Paris) and by Jean-Pierre Morucci (INSERM, Toulouse) for oral presentations, as well as by Marie-Agnès Rix-Montel (Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis) for poster presentations. The Scientific Committee's role was to select 1365 oral presentations and 999 poster presentations from a total of more than 2500 paper proposals received. In addition to these presentations were 17 tutorials on medical physics subjects and 52 round tables. Best thanks to the Scientific Committee, who has worked hard in a very short period of time! To enable the participants to find their way around during the five days of parallel presentations held in up to 20 rooms, all the papers were grouped into approximately 100 different topics, which were in turn grouped into major fields, such as : bioelectromagnetism, biomechanics, the heart, cellular and tissue engineering, electromagnetic waves, physics and utilisation of ionising radiation, signals and models, telemedicine, signal processing etc. The organisers — partly assisted by the French Ministry for National Education, Research and Technology and by Air France — made major efforts to help the participation of some attendees from East European and developing countries, in addition to students. Approximately 2500 participants from 70 different countries attended the congress at the Nice Acropolis congress centre between 14-19 September this year. Industrial participation should also be taken into account: 66 exhibitors from the industrial and commercial sector, mainly from the medical physics field and representing, along with their guests, some 600 extra people! For Pierre Aletti, Physician at the Centre Alexis Vautrin, at Nancy, who co-presided this congress and thereby the responsibility of its organisation with me; for the teams at the Nice Acropolis Congress Center, responsible for all the logistics, management of papers and placement of booths for the technical exhibition ; for all the NICE '97 teams, this constitutes, doubtless, a certain degree of success, and of satisfaction. Thanks again to everybody, and especially for all the authors, from both poster and oral sessions and all the attendees. See you in Chicago in 2000! DIDIER GEIGER - CONGRESS CO-CHAIRMAN DEAN OF THE SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY FACULTY UNIVERSITE DE PARIS VAL DE MARNE (CRÉTEIL) | ||