ERS International Congress 2023

The ERS International Congress is an annual conference. It brings together the world’s respiratory experts to present and discuss the latest scientific and clinical advances across the entire field of respiratory medicine.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Congress was held virtually in 2020 and 2021. In 2022, it was held in a hybrid format with reduced in-person capacity. This year the Congress will continue as hybrid but return to normal capacity. This means there will be the opportunity for patient organisations to participate in person in Milan or access the Congress online.

For more information about the Congress programme, visit the ERS Congress website.

All of the events at Congress that ELF is involved in can be found in our schedule below.

ELF Events at ERS Congress 2023

The European Lung Foundation (ELF) is committed to ensuring patient organisations and patient representatives have the opportunity to attend the European Respiratory Society (ERS) International Congress and contribute their valuable expertise to the programme. We are delighted to once again welcome patient representatives to Congress from a huge range of countries, organisations and lung conditions.

This event page provides practical information for patient organisations to plan their participation in the Congress either in person or online.

We have put together a ‘patient track’ to show the sessions taking place at Congress which we believe to be the most patient-focused, and when they will take place. It has been designed to help patient representatives see which sessions they might be interested in attending, either in person or online. It also shows which sessions have patient speakers involved.

There are two patient tracks available: a general one, and one focussing on rare diseases.

View and download the Patient Track

View and download the Rare Disease Patient Track

Patient speakers in sessions

Every morning between 10.30 – 11.30 we encourage all attending Congress to join us for a coffee break and better understand the issues around air pollution and what we can do about it. Through this we hope to create a network of clean air advocates across Europe and the world.

The ERS Congress will see the return of a five-day programme — offering the very latest in respiratory medicine and science across the full range of respiratory topics. This year ERS will also be adding new opportunities for networking, building relationships and getting engaged in new projects on Wednesday 13 September, the final day of the event. Several of these workshops will involve ELF and would greatly benefit from the participation of patient representatives.

You can see a detailed programme of the events and workshops on Wednesday at the bottom of this page.

ERS and ELF provide a dedicated Congress registration category, and reduced cost, for patient organisations and their representatives. The patient representative registration aims to make Congress more affordable and accessible, particularly to those who wish to bring more than one member of their organisation. The costs for 2023 are outlined in the table below.

Registration for the ERS Congress at the reduced rate of €50 (online) or €110 (in person) is open to patients, carers, paid staff and volunteers linked with a respiratory patient organisation. The respiratory patient organisation must be a member of ELF’s patient organisation network. New patient organisations can easily register to join the network for free.

Practicing healthcare professionals are not eligible for the patient registration. A range of registration types are available to healthcare professionals depending on their age, specialism and stage of their career. Further details can be found on the ERS website.

Representatives of patient organisations will be required to provide evidence of their connection to their patient organisation at the time of registration. This should be sent by email from an official email account of the respiratory patient organisation, confirming the name and role of each person registered as a patient representative. Emails should be sent to: info@europeanlung.org.

This year’s Patient organisation networking day will take place on Saturday 9 September 2023 from 10:45 to 16:30 CEST.

Read more about the day

You can also view the range of posters and resources submitted by organisations attending the ELF Patient Organisation Networking Day 2023. The posters have been produced to showcase important projects taking place across Europe in various disease areas, all linked to this year’s themes of Patient and public involvement in research and Mental health.

See the posters

Registration for the Patient organisation networking day is free of charge, and each organisation can register as many representatives as they want. Representatives must register in advance. The deadline for registrations to attend in-person is Friday 30 June 2023 and for registrations to attend online it is Thursday 31 August 2023.

If you need any more information about the day, please contact us at: info@europeanlung.org.

In recognition of their significant contribution to ELF’s activities, members of the PAC receive one full free registration per organisation to the ERS Congress. Current members of the PAC are listed on our website. Additional representatives from PAC member organisations are entitled to the abovementioned patient registration fee.

Members of the PAC can register for their free pass by following the appropriate link in the ‘How to register’ section below.

Members of an ELF Patient Advisory Group are eligible for a free online registration for Congress, For more details and to express your interest please contact clare.williams@europeanlung.org

ELF aims to support a wide range of patient organisations from across Europe to attend the ERS Congress, helping them to benefit from opportunities to network, hear the latest research and showcase their activities. ELF offers a limited number of travel bursaries to support patient organisations with the costs of travel and accommodation to attend the Patient organisation networking day or the full Congress in person in Milan, Italy. We require that anyone who receives our bursary attend the ELF Patient organisation networking day on Saturday 9 September.

There are no bursaries available for online Congress attendance.

Organisations can apply for two types of bursaries as follows:

• €350 bursary: open to representatives of an organisation based in Europe* to attend the Patient organisation networking day on Saturday 9 September 2023 or representatives attending the full ERS Congress who live within 150km of Milan, Italy.
• €700 bursary: open to representatives of an organisation based in Europe* to attend the Patient organisation networking day on Saturday 9 September 2023 and the full ERS Congress who live more than 150 km from Milan, Italy.

*Europe is defined as one of the countries within the WHO’s European region.

Please note, only one bursary is available per organisation and representatives cannot apply for both the €350 and €700 bursary. Global organisations and national organisations based outside Europe are not eligible for a bursary.

We recognise that voluntary sector organisations are facing a challenging financial environment and we therefore wish to target our bursaries to those most in need. To ensure a balance of different types of patient organisations, this year we have introduced new criteria to award bursaries and will take into account annual organisational income, number of paid staff, geographical location and patient communities represented, and whether it is the first time the organisation has attended the ERS Congress.

The deadline to apply for a bursary is Wednesday 17 May 2023. After this date we are unable to accept new bursary applications.

All applicants will be informed whether they will receive a bursary by Friday 2 June 2023. If successful, representatives will receive their bursary by bank transfer after the Congress.

Details about how to apply for the travel bursaries are in the following section: ‘How to register’.

Representatives of patient organisations:

1. To register for the reduced rate for Congress (either in person or online), please complete the registration form by following this link: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/congress-2023-patient-registration
2. The deadline to register to attend the Patient organisation networking day in person is Friday 30 June 2023.
3. We will then shortly be in contact with you with about the next steps for you to attend Congress.

Members of the ELF Patient Advisory Committee (PAC):

1. To register your organisation’s PAC representative for their full Congress registration, please complete the registration form by following this link: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/congress-2023-PAC-registration.
2. The deadline to register as a PAC representative is Friday 30 June 2023.
3. Additional representatives from your organisation wishing to attend the Patient organisation networking day or the full Congress should follow the instructions above.
4. We will then shortly be in contact with you with about the next steps for you to attend Congress.