Congress Venue

A Room with a ZOO: The ECVS Annual Scientific Meeting 2025 takes place at the Flanders Meeting & Convention Centre in Antwerp, the only convention centre in the world with its own zoo! It is directly integrated with the awardwinning 19th century Antwerp zoo and an architectural marvel. As a venue, it combines all requirements for a successful congress with nature conservation and sustainability.

Registration

Registration will open before the end of the year 2024.
A personal login is required to register. If you do not have a login, please contact us at [email protected].

The 34^th Annual Scientific Meeting will again be offered as a hybrid congress. For planning purposes, all delegates need to indicate whether they plan to participate on-site or online^*). This preference can be changed any time up until the very start of the congress. On-site delegates will have access to all online content as well.

_{^*) For ECVS Diplomates, online participation counts toward recertification as well.}

Additionally, each delegate will be asked to indicate their primary area of interest in the registration form. The options are orthopaedic, neurology or soft tissue for Small Animal delegates and orthopaedic or soft tissue for Large Animal delegates. This information is merely requested as a rough indication as to which streams can be expected to be most popular to help us allocate room capacities. It is certainly not be a binding registration, and each delegate will always be able to freely choose which lectures to attend on-site.

Registration fees 2025

_{^*) PhD Students / Interns / Students / veterinary nurses will be required to provide written evidence of their status when they arrive and register at the Meeting.
^**)  ECVS Diplomates 65 years and older who have retired as defined by the ECVS.
^***)  Guest pass gives access to exhibit hall, coffee breaks and lunches, posters and the welcome reception on Thursday.}

The registration fee includes for one person:

• admission to the 34^th Annual Scientific Meeting
• access to all online content
• scientific proceedings (available online)
• certificate of attendance
• coffee / tea breaks (2 per day on Friday and Saturday)
• lunches during meeting (Friday and Saturday)
• welcome reception Thursday evening

Registration can only be purchased for the entire congress; single day access passes are not available.

Scientific Programme

Small Animal Programme Highlights

This year's Small Animal programme will put a focus on errors, compliucations and adverse events -experiences, that are not often faced easily, but undeniably hold an educational value. We are excited and grateful to welcome world-renowned speakers who are prepared to share how they have reflected and learned from mistakes. We appreciate them being prepared to share their setbacks, turning them into powerful learning opportunities. The "Disaster" Stream will also tackle the antibiotic resistance crisis which is recognized as an urgent global public health threat.

2025 also sees the ECVS continue our biennial collaboration with the Veterinary Society of Surgical Oncology (VSSO). The diverse programme includes the use of near infra-red fluorescent imaging of pulmonary parenchyma, both minimally and maximally invasive surgery for thoracic neoplasia, options for management of resectable or non-resectable thyroid tumours and an exciting session on optimizing outcomes following the use of radiation therapy.

The Small Animal orthopedic stream might best be described as … controversial. We will tackle the challenging issue of stress fractures with a deep dive into current recommendations for management of humeral intracondylar fissure. From there, we adopt a transdisciplinary approach, incorporating opinions from experts in the management of other insufficiency or fatigue fractures in cats, horses, dogs and humans with a view to overcoming disciplinary silos and providing a more comprehensive understanding of these challenging conditions by integrating knowledge from various fields.

The neurology stream for 2025 again, crosses disciplinary lines, considering the management of neurologic injuries associated with pelvic fractures. We will consider how the pre-operative neurological assessment may impact on decision-making, as well as considering treatment strategies for associated vertebral fractures and tail-pull injuries. The final neurology session will address the treatment of spinal deformities including deciding when treatment is necessary, the importance of pre-operative planning and anticipating what results can be anticipated following spinal deformity correction.

Detailed Small Animal programme: coming soon

Large Animal Programme Highlights

Large Animal delegates may expect two exciting pre-congress labs on Wednesday, 2 July. Topics will be an in-depth Tenoscopy course with focus on resection techniques and a Colic surgery lab including anastomosis techniques.

The surgical sessions during the congress will include foal surgery, the geariatric surgical patient, surgery of the foot, the equine pelvis and hip, a special in-depth session on suspensory ligament desmitis and more. We will have the pleasure to welcome overseas speakers such as Julie Dechant and Alan Ruggles as well as many European colleagues and speakers.

Parallel sessions will include management of acute trauma to the thorax, abdomen, head and shoulder, surgery of the back and a ruminant session. The "Disaster" sessions with focus on learning from mistakes in the surgical managment of colic surgery, fracture repair and anesthesia and the much appreciated evidence-based surgery session.

Detailed Large Animal programme: coming soon

Abstracts

Abstract submission for the 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting is closed. The list of accepted abstracts will be communicated on 20 December 2024.

Abstract Guidelines

Timeline

Please take note of the timeline for abstract submission, acceptance and presentation at the meeting:

• September 2024: Abstract submission opens on the ECVS website
• 1 November 2024, 12:00 GMT: submission deadline, portal shuts down
• 20 December 2024: Authors are notified of the acceptance status of their abstract(s); list of accepted abstracts is published on the ECVS website
• 15 May 2025: Registration deadline for presenting authors of an accepted abstract (oral presentation or poster). If registration and payment are not received by this date, the abstract will be withdrawn from the programme and from publication in Veterinary Surgery.
• June 2025: Pre-congress slide upload available to presenting authors
• 20 June 2025: Deadline for upload of ePosters (all posters will be expected as ePosters)
• 3-5 July 2025: 34^th ECVS Annual Scientific Meeting in Antwerp, Belgium

Please be aware, that if your abstract is accepted, you are still expected to register and pay for the annual scientific meeting.
All presenting authors are expected to attend the meeting in-person. Online presentations will not accepted.

Sponsoring and Exhibition

The exhibition space is currently fully booked. We keep a waiting list of interested sponsors to whom freed-up space will be made available. Please contact Julia von Känel ([email protected], +41 44 635 94 07)  for further information regarding available stands or other sponsoring opportunities.

Sponsoring Brochure 2025

Travel & Accommodation

Getting there

The Antwerp congress centre 'A Room with a ZOO' is one of the easiest venues to reach by train, being almost the continuation of the adjacent Belle Époque international station linking to the European rail network. Antwerp can be easily reached from Brussels by train within less than an hour and has some direct international flight connections as well.

^{Antwerp main station}

Accommodation

A dedicated hotel booking link for delegates has been installed with access to favourable rates where offered^*). The standard sorting of the hotel list is according to distance to the congress venue (with the closest hotels at the top of the list).

^*) Please note that hotels may choose to offer special rates for congress delegates, but not all of them do. Comparing prices with other booking sites is always recommended.

Booking link

Please be aware that any contingents not booked until 1 week before the congress will be released.

Farewell Evening

We are looking forward to a spectacular evening at the prestigious and impressive Handelsbeurs in Antwerp. More details to follow soon.

Congress App

The congress app will be made available in due course before the meeting.

FAQs

Answers to the most common questions around the ECVS Annual Scientific Meeting can also be found on our FAQs page.

FAQs around the Annual Scientific Meetings

Annual Scientific Meeting 2024

Proceedings and Certificate

The congress proceedings are available to all registered congress delegates in their 'your ECVS' area, menu 'Proceedings'.

The electronic attendance certificate is available for download to all confirmed delegates via their 'your ECVS' area in the menu 'Annual Scientific Meeting' ('your attendance'). You will also find a link to the photo album in this same area.

Online Congress

All delegates (on-site and online) can access to the congress e-platform. The login details for the platform have been sent by [email protected]. If you cannot find your login details, please also search your spam folder or write to [email protected].

e-congress platform

The recordings are available for a period of 6 months from 17 July 2024.

Save the Date

2026 35^th Annual Scientific Meeting: 9-11 July, Liverpool, UK

The dates and locations for 2027 and 2028 Annual Scientific Meetings will be revealed soon.