It is a wonderful feeling and a great honor to be able to welcome you to the 27^th SMRT Annual Meeting in Paris, France. Being the first SMRT president from Europe makes the occasion very special and I am extremely proud and happy for the privilege to welcome you to one of Europe’s most beautiful and exciting cities. The Annual Meeting, 15 -18 June 2018 takes place at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, a newly renovated convention center.

It feels like it wasn’t long ago when we met for the fantastic SMRT meeting in Honolulu, Hawai’i and now we are already getting ready for a European adventure and a wonderful scientific program prepared by Dora Zeidler and this year’s SMRT program committee. A wide variety of interesting and thrilling topics presented by some of the world’s most prominent MR-speakers ensures us that the meeting in Paris is going to be interesting, inspiring and a meeting we can look forward to in many ways.

2017 was the first Annual Meeting that we could offer our participants three full days of educational sessions and it was undoubtedly a big success! To repeat last year’s successful event we will open up our meeting on Friday evening with a poster session followed by a two day SMRT seminar with exciting discussions and educational sessions. Monday we offer ISMRM sessions that are hand selected and accredited for technologists and radiographers. In addition to the exciting educational offerings one of the major advantages with our meetings is that we are able to engage and discuss common professional issues with colleagues from all over the world while learning how things are done and handled in other similar clinics and institutions. To encourage these discussions we ensure plenty of time for social events. Friday evening’s poster session includes award winning poster presentations and a highly appreciated reception afterwards. Saturday evening, after the first day of lectures, we invite you to join us at the SMRT Welcome Reception for an evening of fun. Guest registrations are available so bring a friend!

This year will also be the third time we offer an opportunity to follow our two-day SMRT seminar as a Virtual Meeting, which means that you can sit at home and not only enjoy the lectures presented live in Paris, but also participate and ask questions to our speakers via our special Virtual Meeting moderators. This is a highly appreciated event that an increasing crowd are signing up for and enjoying very much. Adding the third day option to our meeting means that SMRT attendees have access to ISMRM activities like the Opening Session and the reception in the Exhibition Hall Sunday evening as well as the ISMRM exhibits on Monday. We are also welcome to attend the Monday Plenary Session and to learn more from a number of lectures. This is a great value so be sure to register for the 4 day meeting! Every year we also arrange a Joint Forum in collaboration with ISMRM and this year’s co-organizers are Marty Sherriff, SMRT and John Port, ISMRM. They have, together with the ISMRM program committee chair Karla Miller, created a fantastic Joint Forum program for Monday. This year we are going to discuss and learn a lot more about the hottest topic in the imaging world today: Artificial Intelligence (AI)!

To organize this kind of meeting involves a lot of people and to make a meeting like this a success it is necessary to involve a devoted, dedicated and enthusiastic crowd that works together under almost family like conditions. Together we can make it!

Looking forward to meeting you in Paris (or through our Virtual Meeting).

Bienvenue à Paris! Welcome to Paris!

Titti Owman, Sweden

SMRT President 2017-2018