Chapter Spotlight: Denmark

The Danish Epilepsy Society (DES) was founded in 1970, and has 180 members. The board of the society has seven members, elected every second year.

The mission of the DES is to promote epileptology by:

• Facilitating recruitment of young health professionals and researchers
• Promoting education
• Stimulating research
• Helping with quality assurance

The society holds two annual meetings: a two-day meeting in spring, and a one-day meeting in autumn. The general assembly is held during the two-day meeting. The scientific part of the meetings is in English and we always have one or two international experts as guest speakers. Each meeting is focused on a specific topic of epileptology, where development has been achieved recently. In addition, at the spring-meeting we organize a lecture competition for young epileptiologists, where they present their own research results.

The DES, together with the Danish Epilepsy Centre organizes an annual four-day course: Introduction into Epileptology. The course is in Danish and aimed at young physicians who wish to deepen their knowledge in epileptology. The DES grants each year three scholarships for the Baltic Sea Summer School on Epileptology, and every second year, two scholarships for the Dianalund Summer School on EEG and Epilepsy.

The Danish Epilepsy Society administers the Lennart Gramm foundation, that grant funding for epileptology research in Denmark.

The DES has a tight collaboration with other Danish medical societies (especially the Danish Neurological Society and the Danish Society for Clinical Neurophysiology), with the Danish epilepsy patient organization (Danish Epilepsy Association), the other Nordic epilepsy chapters and with the ILAE topic oriented commissions and the ILAE regional commission (Commission on European Affairs).

Photos from recent chapter activities