From Submission to Review: Inside the AMPC Process

Now that abstracts are submitted and out for review, I can reflect on how the abstract submission process went this year. For this blog, I also have some data to share with you.

First, we successfully used our new conference platform, ECHO. There was a tremendous amount of work involved to accomplish this. The ECHO platform was built in-house by the ISMRM community for the ISMRM community. We’ll share more details about the development process in the future. I want to thank Andrew Dupuis, a member of our Society, who did the vast majority of the work. I’d also like to thank the Central Office for their willingness to go on this ECHO adventure. Additionally, I thank the AMPC for their efforts to test the systems before they were broadly used, and thank you all for your patience as we launched the new platform.

Second, there were many occasions during the submission window when I thought none of you would submit any abstracts! One week before the deadline, there were approximately 300 abstracts submitted. Only 300! It is typical for our Society to submit the majority of the abstracts on the last day of the submission window, with approximately one quarter of abstracts submitted in the last few hours! Here is a plot of the submissions over time, along with my thoughts throughout the process.

1. Oct 1 – Abstracts open. We got ECHO going on time! 😄
2. Oct 1 – Less than two hours after opening, we have our first submission! 🥳
3. Oct 9 – There was an Azure outage, which took out some major companies. However, there was no impact on ECHO! 🙂
4. Oct 22 – Are any of you going to come to Cape Town?! I start having anxiety nightmares. 😨
5. Each day through Oct 27 my anxiety nightmares increase. 😨😨😨
6. Oct 28 – People are submitting abstracts! This will be okay. 😌
7. Oct 29 – Another Azure outage. This is a big disappointment. We need to extend the deadline by 24 hours. 🤯
8. Oct 30 – All the submissions are in! I am really excited with all the submissions, but now I need to assign reviewers. We also need to make sure the abstract review system works on ECHO. There is still a lot of work to do. 🤩🤓

One major takeaway: please, be kind to future annual meeting chairs and submit your abstracts a few days before the deadline! 

Now that we have all the abstracts, they are out for review. I appreciate everyone who is volunteering their time to review abstracts. When the AMPC assembles the scientific content, we depend on your input. It is very helpful if you provide constructive comments to the AMPC about the abstracts. If you have any questions about the abstract review process, please review the directions here. This year, the submissions for “MRI in Clinical Practice” and “Registered Abstracts” are included for review. Please keep your eyes out for these abstracts and remember that their review process is different. If you have any questions about these types of abstracts, please refer to the directions here.

If you were interested in reviewing abstracts this year but were not selected, it is most likely because we did not have your member information. To review abstracts for the annual meeting, you must be an active member within the last year. To be considered as a reviewer in the future, please make sure that your skills are submitted in ECHO and you have an up-to-date membership.

Finally, I look forward to seeing you all in Cape Town 09-14 May 2026!

Katy Keenan, Ph.D.
2026 Annual Meeting Program Chair