Preface from European Respiratory Society President 2018 Mina Gaga and European Respiratory Society Early-Career Member Committee Chair Lieuwe D. J. Bos
The European Respiratory Society (ERS) International Congress is one of the biggest annual events in the respiratory calendar—bringing over 20,000 respiratory professionals together for the latest scientific knowledge and hot topics in respiratory medicine.
Our Congress is an inclusive event; the programme has something for everyone, whether you are a clinician, a scientist or allied health professional, whether you are in the early stages of your career or a professional with many years’ experience.
We appreciate that there are many people who would have liked to attend the Congress who were unable to make it, and are pleased to present reviews and highlights from the 2018 ERS Congress programme, which featured high-standard sessions and symposia touching on the major fields and developments in respiratory science—all expertly delivered by world-leaders in each field.
This year, two joint Chinese sessions were organised in collaboration with the Chinese Thoracic Society (CTS), and the reviews from those sessions are amongst the contributions we have included in this publication. The sessions were attended not only by attendees present in Paris but also by attendees in three hubs in China, where the sessions were broadcasted live and moderated locally.
This issue of the journal reports from our assemblies, summarizing selected new data to be presented at this 2018 ERS Congress in each field. The reports are prepared with the participation and editorship of our Early Career Member Committee (ECM Committee).
The ECM Committee represents all ERS members up to 40 years of age. This Committee ensures the active participation of early career members of our Society into all our activities. And this is a particular aim and wish of our Society: we specifically wish to support our younger members in their research, education and career development. We want to help them network with their peers and with our senior clinicians and investigators, to blend into our networking and long-term plans. They are the future of our Society and our future leadership. So, this issue of the journal features reports prepared by the ECM committee, in collaboration with our Assembly Secretaries and we hope you will enjoy them.
In addition to the reviews featured here, we also invite you to visit the ERS website to access presentations from the sessions once they are made available. Furthermore, for a fee, our Live@ERS Plus service offers you an opportunity to watch sessions from Congress online up to 3 months after the event has taken place.
We do hope that you can join us in Madrid, where we will host the ERS International Congress 2019, but in the meantime, we wish you pleasant reading.
Acknowledgements
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