Madan Rehani, PhD
President, IOMP

Important announcements about WC2021, IOMP Elections, ICMP, WC2024 and WC2027

We have important announcements in this issue of the Newsletter. First and foremost is the postponement of the World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering (WC2021) by almost one year to 11-17 June 2022. The COVID-19 has created an unprecedented situation. After deliberations, the Congress Organizing Committee (COC) of the WC2021 and the Administrative Council of the International Union of Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine (IUPESM) made this decision which had to be done to avoid heavy penalties of the Singapore Convention Center for cancellation as no other dates were available in view of large number of 2021 conferences getting moved to 2022. As a result, IOMP was faced with series of questions and first and foremost being the IOMP Elections for which we were ready with announcement calling for nominations. An urgent meeting of ExCom of IOMP was held on 5^th October 2020 and after deliberations it was unanimously decided to defer elections by one year. That meant the term of the current ExCom will get extended by one year as 2020 becomes a frozen year in view of COVID-19. ExCom decided that the World Congress of 2024 (WC2024) should move to 2025 so as to allow holding of International Conference on Medical Physics (ICMP) mid-way between two WCs. The WC2027 will then move to 2028. These were important decisions and there was unanimity. The Council has been informed of these developments. We appreciate your understanding and are aware that all of you are as affected as we are and are as interested in seeing things getting back to normal so that we can be back on track.