ESCMID Operating Procedures

Educational Activities


One of the central roles of ESCMID is the promotion of knowledge in clinical microbiology and infectious diseases. The Society supports various educational activities for junior and senior scientists and clinicians.

ESCMID educational activities are divided in the following classes:

  • Postgraduate Educational Courses (PGEC): PGECs are more of classroom-style courses with a focus on a specific clinical topic. Still, different formats of interactive learning can be included.
  • Postgraduate Technical Workshop (PGTW): PGTWs focus on the practical hands-on approach in relation to a specific technological issue.
  • Summer School (SuSch): The Summer School is an annually organized, one-week update course on clinical microbiology and infectious diseases.

All types of educational activities have an international or European scope, are held in English and are clearly educational, thus focusing rather on basic concepts and state-of-the-art knowledge than only on scientific work in progress.

PGEC and PGTW


The call for proposals for couses in 2024 has closed. Next call for course proposals for 2025 will open in mid-2024.

 

1) Application Procedure

 

  • Applications may come from ESCMID Study Groups, ESCMID affiliated societies, projects connected to ESCMID, EU-funded consortia in which ESCMID is a partner, European and international partner societies, and individual ESCMID members.
  • Indicated time and venue are taken as suggestions, since during the selection procedure, changes may be necessary in order to shape the Education Programme in a coordinated way.
  • The course proposal form should indicate whether the applicants have applied for or performed this course before (date, venue, topic). Should this be the case, information should be provided about how to implement suggestions stemming from the participants’ evaluation of the previous course.
  • External sponsors (included corporate sponsorship) are in principle acceptable and must be listed in the proposal. Mono sponsorship is not allowed - at least two sponsors are required. It lies within the organiser’s responsibility to ensure that the educational program is neither influenced nor biased by commercial organisations - following the guidelines for European CME Accreditation. Therefore, sponsoring company representatives shall not be part of the course organising committee.
  • October 2023 Call is open from 1 October to 8 November 2023. Please stick to the deadline, as late applications will not be considered.
  • All proposals submitted within October 2023 Open Call shall correspond to courses scheduled to take place in the second half of 2024 (between May and December).

 

2) Selection Procedure

 

  • All proposals will be briefly reviewed by the ESCMID Office as for their completeness and correctness. The proposals will be subsequently evaluated by the ESCMID Education Subcommittee according to their learning objectives, programme, international representation of the faculty, previous evaluation of similar courses (where available), gender and geographic balance, redundancies with other events in either the current or the previous year.
  • The full ESCMID Education Programme is then approved by the ESCMID Executive Committee, who also decides about granting a financial support (see point 5).
  • Organisers of accepted course proposals will sign a contract with ESCMID, which will clearly indicate the tasks and responsibilities on both sites, i.e., the organisers and ESCMID Office.
  • Feedback to organiser on the outcome of their submission, including possible revision requests, will be sent after approval of the whole Education Programme.

 

3) Local Organiser’s Tasks

 

  • Updating the course proposal form after approval of the course by ESCMID Executive Subcommittee.
  • Indicating contact details of the course administrative secretariat.
  • Keeping the ESCMID Office informed about the progress of the course preparation.
  • Helping the ESCMID Office assembling the information for the course website and the course leaflet.
  • Inviting the faculty members and collecting their consent forms and presentations for publication in the ESCMID E-Library.
  • Managing all aspects related to invoices and payments, including the reimbursement of course speakers and actively seeking sponsors for the project.
  • Assembling a final report and providing it to the ESCMID Office. The report must include the following: participant list incl. grant recipients + faculty, financial report, presentations of all speakers, pictures from the course. The final report must be provided to ESCMID Office not later than two months after the course.
  • Booking of the course venue and the course speakers’ accommodation.
  • All financial transactions shall be conducted in Euros (EUR). Bank charges incurred in relation to these transactions shall be shared between the two parties. Any additional bank fees related to currency exchange etc. shall be borne by the receiver.

 

4) ESCMID Office’s Tasks

 

  • Delivering all templates for course preparation (i.e., course proposal form, online registration, online course evaluation form, course evaluation summary template, invoice template, consent form template).
  • Designing leaflet for the event. The organiser can print them locally using the file provided by the ESCMID Office.
  • Promoting onsite at the ECCMID and at selected events with a similar target audience as the course.
  • Performing e-mailing promotion with the ESCMID Newsletter.
  • Performing online promotion on the ESCMID website with a subpage dedicated to the event, which includes an electronic version of the leaflet and online registration + payment collection for the course.
  • Providing online entry platform for attendance grant applicants and pre-selecting the grantees according to internal rules.
  • Helping with organisational questions.
  • Applying for CME accreditation of the course in a timely manner.
  • Transferring to the organiser the agreed ESCMID financial support (see point 5 below).
  • Providing all participants with online evaluation/feedback questionnaire following completion of the course. Once the questionnaire is filled in, the delegates of online courses will be able to download their attendance/CME certificate. For onsite/hybrid courses, the attendance/CME certificates will be provided by ESCMID Office via e-mail.

 

5) Contribution procedure

 

The payment of EUR 10,000 is made to the organiser in advance of the course as soon as the contract between the organiser and ESCMID is signed. ESCMID will not cover any expenses over the granted EUR 10,000. If the course requires a higher budget, the organiser is obliged to secure additional funding from other sources such as from sponsor, university, national society, etc.

 

After providing the ESCMID Office with the final report (not later than two months after the course), ESCMID will then transfer to the organiser (i) the registration income and (ii) up to EUR 5,000 which has been allocated for attendance grants. The registration income will be split equally between the Study Group and/or the affiliated society and others involved in course organisation.

 

The above-described financial support applies to onsite and hybrid courses. For online courses, ESCMID does not provide any financial support other than organising and paying the company with which ESCMID has a contract (i.e. Multilearning for 2023 - 2024) for running the course online. After the course, ESCMID will transfer the registration income to the organiser, split equally between the Study Group and/or the affiliated society and others involved in course organisation.

 

ESCMID Summer School


1) General Information

 

  • The ESCMID Summer School is an annually organized, one-week update course on clinical microbiology and infectious diseases.
  • The programme and the venue for the Summer School (SuSch) are decided by the Education Subcommittee (ES).
  • In general, one of the members of the ES volunteers for the organization. However, he or she may ask other members in the committee or any other ESCMID member(s) to co-organize the SuSch. These persons then act as ESCMID Summer School Directors.
  • In the unlikely case that none of the members would volunteer for the organization, the Education Officer can ask ESCMID members outside the ES.
  • Geographic redundancies will be considered when choosing the venue. The time for SuSch is usually during July and August, but always after the end of the academic year.
  • The proposal about the organizer(s) and the venue will be made during the ES meeting at the ECCMID, two years in advance of the event.
  • A site visit to the venue by the Education Officer and a representative from the ESCMID Office will be made well in advance of the Summer School.

 

2) Organisation & Responsibilites


A) SuSch Director’s Tasks

 

  • Help assembling content for poster/leaflet
  • Decision on regular/grant applications
  • Case presentation selection
  • Check submitted documents (case description, CV & motivation letter)
  • Assign students to groups a-e (small group tutorials)
  • Select cases to be presented and create case presentation schedule
  • Assign students to pro-con sessions (instead of case presentations) and inform students accordingly
  • Help students with preparation and questions
  • Selection & reservation of accommodation speakers/participants
  • Support for bus transfer participants (airport – venue – airport)
  • Selection & reservation of meeting facilities incl. all necessary technical equipment
  • Selection of coffee breaks/lunches
  • Organization of all social activities (opening, closing, excursion)
  • Organization of speakers present
  • Production of a banner according to ESCMID template
  • Seek for sponsorship (Financial support, conference bags, notepads, pens, lanyards, memory sticks, pencils, …)
  • Provide all necessary infrastructures for onsite registration (additional manpower, printer, etc.)
  • Provide ESCMID Office with all invoices/offers upon request for budget completion

 

B) ESCMID Office’s Tasks

 

  • Invitation of facilitators/speakers
  • Assemble and print poster/leaflet (with help of SuSch Directors)
  • Prepare website according to leaflet
  • Set-up of registration (incl. grant application)
  • Advertisement: Website, ESCMID Newsletter, mailings, distribution of printed material
  • CME accreditation
  • Assemble normal/grant applications for SuSch Director
  • Send out confirmation letters to applicants
  • Ask speakers for handout material & consent for recording
  • Provide upload platform for speakers handout material (to be put on memory sticks)
  • Inform participants on case presentation schedule
  • Assemble final programme booklet
  • Print of attendance certificates
  • Provide SuSchu Director with printed evaluation forms
  • Handling of all budgetary matters (except sponsorship) through a SuSch dedicated account
  • (Produce badges)
  • (Print attendance certificates)
  • (Booking of travel arrangements (flights) for foreign speakers)

 

C) PCO/DMC Tasks (if assigned)

In coordination with ESCMID Office and SuSch Director:

 

  • Booking of accommodation speakers/participants
  • Arrangement of bus transfer participants (airport – venue – airport)
  • Booking of meeting facilities incl. all necessary technical equipment
  • Arrangement of coffee breaks/lunches
  • Organization of all social activities (opening, closing, excursion)
  • Production of a banner according to ESCMID template
  • Seek for sponsorship (Financial support, conference bags, notepads, pens, lanyards, memory sticks, pencils, …)
  • Produce badges according to ESCMID template (incl. plastic covers)
  • Print out attendance certificates according to ESCMID template
  • Provide all necessary infrastructures for onsite registration (additional manpower, printer, etc.)
  • Booking of travel arrangements for faculty
  • Provide ESCMID Office with all invoices/offers upon request for budget completion

 

A contract between PCO/DMC and ESCMID will be negotiated by the ESCMID Office. A template is available upon request. All final services of the PCO/DMC will be defined in the respective contract.


3) Scientific programme, selection of the faculty and the students

 

  • The programme should cover a broad range of relevant topics in clinical microbiology and infectious diseases. The aim is to discuss up-to-date information in an interactive fashion. In order to achieve this, small group discussions facilitated by the members of the faculty are organized. These should be highly interactive (e.g. quizzes, role-play, work on “real” cases, perform “real” tasks, create study proposals/designs, etc.). Apart from a short introduction/conclusion, this is not intended to be a “frontal” lecture by the facilitator.

    Session Types Overview
     
  • The number of faculty members should not exceed 15 and at least half of them should come from outside the host country.
  • Venue and final programme are subject to approval by the ESCMID Executive Committee (EC).
  • The applicants for the SuSch are required to submit a short case related with their current practice. If the student is accepted to the SuSch, he/she is supposed to present this case in one of the interactive sessions. Guidance for preparing cases is available below:

    Guidance Student Case Presentations
     
  • There is no age limit for the attendees; however, the main target group is young MDs at the end of their specialty training, as well as biologists, pharmacists, PhD students and postdoctoral fellows working in the infection and/or microbiology field.
  • In order to be able to maintain the interactive nature of the SuSch, a maximum of 60 students will be accepted for each year. Priority will be given to those who did not attend a SuSch before.
  • All applications will be made through a dedicated SuSch website. All applications will be evaluated by the SuSch Directors and selected applicants will be notified at least one month before the date of the SuSch.

 

4) Budget and grants

 

  • The SuSch is self-financed by the tuition fees, which normally cover the course, educational material, housing (double accommodation), breakfast and lunch for six days, the social events and airport transfers to/from the course venue.
  • The EC will provide attendance grants up to a maximum of 20 students. Grant applicants must produce a short letter explaining their professional situation and their motivation for attending the SuSch, a brief CV and a case presentation. All applications will be evaluated and the final decision will be made by the SuSch Directors.
  • All budgetary matters are organized by the ESCMID Office through a central bank account dedicated to the SuSch. External sponsors are in principle accepted, but should be kept to a minimum. Their financial support will be managed by the SuSch Director or PCO/DMC. No commercial exhibitions are allowed in the SuSch venue. Educational print material (e.g. books, journal articles) can be provided by the sponsors and may be exhibited.

 

5) Timelines

 

  • ES meeting during ECCMID (two years prior to the SuSch): The organizer(s) and the venue are decided.
  • ES meeting during ECCMID (the year preceding the SuSch): The provisional programme is presented to the ES for discussion.
  • October (the year preceding the SuSch): The programme is finalized by the ES and submitted for approval to the EC.
  • November/December (the year preceding the SuSch): The scientific programme is approved by the EC. The faculty gets invited, promotional material is prepared.
  • November/December (the year preceding the SuSch): Site visit to the venue.
  • January: The SuSch website is opened and applications are accepted.
  • One month before the start of the SuSch: Attendees and grant receivers are notified.