Dear members of the International Federation of Neuroendoscopy, dear friends, and neuroendoscopy enthusiasts!

It is a great honor and pleasure to serve you as the president of IFNE 2019 to 2021. I thank you all for the trust and electing me as the new president. At first I want to thank Samer Elbabaa, Chairman of the 9th World Congress that was held in Orlando on November 21-24, 2019, for organizing an outstanding meeting and his generous hospitality. Together with Joachim Oertel, Scientific Committee Chairman, he created an exciting scientific program. In the name of the IFNE membership, I offer our gratitude for a superbly done job.

Furthermore, my thanks go to all previous IFNE presidents and EB members who contributed to the development of IFNE, but especially to our two last presidents Peppe Cinalli and Spyros Sgouros, for their endless efforts to transform IFNE to a truly scientific society. That was a lot of work. Additionally, I am grateful for the great support that we have from Erasmus Conferences & Events S.A., which has been appointed as PCO of the IFNE since January 2017.

The journal “World Neurosurgery” has been assigned the official journal of the International Federation of Neuroendoscopy. We are allowed to publish the abstracts of our world congress in a special supplement. All IFNE members can subscribe to the e-version of “World Neurosurgery” at a discounted rate of approximately 55 EUR/year. A link will be provided on our website soon.

The membership fee for the year 2020 was included in the IFNE 2019 congress registration fee. That means that all participants of the congress in Orlando are automatically an IFNE member for 2020. I hope that all of you will continue your dedication to IFNE by confirming the membership in 2021. Those who could not make it to Orlando can now apply for membership at our website. As an active member of IFNE, you will receive a series of benefits, including the following:

• Reduced registration fees and priority registration for all scientific and educational meetings organized by the IFNE
• Reduced registration fees in IFNE endorsed scientific and educational meetings
• Access to restricted scientific and educational content to be made available to IFNE members by electronic means
• Eligibility to apply for grants in future IFNE organized meetings
• Subscription to IFNE publications

The next IFNE interim meeting will be held in Hyderabad, India, together with the 7th Annual Meeting of the Neuroendoscopy Society of India from September 4 – 6, 2020. This meeting will be organized by Drs. Manas Panigrahi, Alok Ranjan, and Subodh Raju. Additionally, there will be a pre-conference workshop on September 3, 2020. I encourage all of you to participate in this important IFNE event.

The main mission of our society is to promote the development of neuroendoscopy worldwide with meetings, courses and publications. There should be a close collaboration with the neuroendoscopy committee of the WFNS which has the same mission. My vision for the next years is to organize a special hands-on course for residents and fellows, to propose a training curriculum in neuroendoscopy and to establish guidelines for specific neuroendoscopic procedures. Additionally, I hope that we will have more joint research projects and publications.

Since we have officially become a scientific society only recently, a lot of work is in front of us to develop our federation. I encourage everyone to contribute to the mission of our society. Any ideas and initiatives are welcome. I look forward to an exciting year at the IFNE.

I wish you and your families a healthy and successful new year.

Henry W. S. Schroeder
President, International Federation of NeuroEndoscopy

Greifswald, January 1, 2020