Chapter Name: Germany
Report By: Ingmar Blumcke

Publications:

Zeitschrift für Epileptologie (SpringerMedizin Berlin)

Summary of Activities:

The 54th annual meeting was held in Fürth, Germany from June 13-16, 2018 accommodating 900 registered participants, 41 scientific platform sessions and 20 educational training courses. Dr. Herman Stefan was awarded the prestigious Otfried-Foerster medal. The meeting was accompanied by the epilepsy patient day on June 16, 2018 at the same venue.
In 2018, the German chapter granted 79 certificate for successful education. The chapter also granted several bursaries to allow young epileptologists to attend scientific meetings across Germany and 2 Otfried-Foerster fellowships were given to support training in epileptology.
In 2018, the Dieter Janz award from the Peter and Jyette Wolf foundation for the best scientific publication of a young German epileptologist was awarded to Dr. Barbara Schmeiser (Schmeiser et al. 2018, J Neurol 265:500-509).
The 8th International Summer School for Neuropathology and Epilepsy Surgery was held in Erlangen, Germany, July 26-29 accommodating 50 participants and 14 tutors from 27 countries. ILAE and ILAE-Europe granted 12 travel bursaries for attendees from resource poor countries.

Challenges:

The German ILAE and IBE chapters will join forces and work closely together to increase public awareness against stigma, discrimination and treatment gaps. The Epilepsy Day was organized by the German IBE chapter on October 5 in cooperation with the Brüderkrankenhaus in Trier, Germany (patronized by Dr. Katharina Barley, federal minister of justice and consumer protection).

Future Plans:

The 55th annual meeting will be jointly organized by the German, Austrian and Swiss ILAE chapters in Basel, May 8-11, 2019.

Officer Election Date: Prof. Andreas Schulze-Bonhage (Freiburg, Germany) was elected as incoming president for the term 2019-2020.