The 17th European Microscopy Congress (EMC2024) took place at the Bella Center in the Danish capital Copenhagen, August 26-30, 2024, with an attendance of 2,500 registrants from at least 51 countries, who had the opportunity to hear from researchers at various career levels from both academia and industry.

Eight years have passed since the latest EMC (Lyon, 2016); in the meantime, the Covid pandemic most regrettably caused a last-minute cancellation of the attempted organized EMC2020 in Copenhagen. Accordingly, EMC2024 was planned in the wake of the pandemic at a time where we did not know whether physical conferences would ever happen again – at least to the same extent we have grown used to in the past. Fortunately, in Copenhagen 2024 it seemed as if all the unpleasant memories of the past pandemic were almost forgotten, even though most of the world was in lock-down less than 3 years before. Some prayers must have been taken into consideration, because even the late August weather was perfect for outdoor social activities.

The 1,310 submitted abstracts for the three main symposia complemented the impressive number of registrants and paved the road for an extensive and dynamic conference programme spanning advances in Life Science, Physical Science, and Instrumentation & Methodology. Accordingly, EMC2024 featured six parallel tracks with 35 scientific sessions giving room for 422 oral presentations, 50 invited speakers, and 5 plenary and 775 poster presentations.

Approximately 250 registrants decided to arrive early and attend one of the seven preconference workshops offered on the Sunday before conference kick-off. However, not only pre-conference workshop students had decided to arrive in good time, because the welcome reception Sunday evening welcomed more than 1,300 conference delegates for a truly memorable event.

The spacious conference hall – shaped to host all EMC2024 scientific activities for the five full days − consisted of a plenary lecture theater seating 1,500 delegates, five breakaway theaters with a capacity of 350 pax each, and a generous poster area with a capacity of 400 posters. The trade exhibition was the centerpiece of the hall, featuring many of the world’s leading companies in the field. More than 500 registrants from the attending companies were on hand to show-case their latest cutting-edge instrumentation and accessories, and EMC2024 warmly welcomed a total of 105 exhibitors including 10 Open Science contributions and the two EMC2028 bidders, Brno and Barcelona. During the lunch breaks the five breakaway theatres were generously booked by the vendors for introduction and presentations of new technologies.

Thursday evening, the Conference dinner at the Bella Center was jam-packed to capacity with 800 seated guests, who enjoyed a 3-course dinner accompanied by a full jazz big band in Sinatra style. The dance floor was quickly fully packed with happy conference delegates.

Numerous feedbacks indicate that all attendants – academia and vendors − had a great, busy, and productive time at EMC2024. Taken into consideration that the pandemic with lock-down precautions had just been left behind us, my personal outstanding memory would probably the great pleasure of seeing the buzzing activity in the conference hall. Colleagues finally catching up in person, the impressive activity with all the vendors’ booths, and four days of truly amazing activity in the poster-sessions – handshakes and even hugs – who would have believed this possible again just three years ago.

The 18^th European Microscopical Congress (EMC2028) will be organized by the Spanish Microscopy Society in Barcelona, September 18-22, 2028 – we are all looking forward for the continuation of this important cornerstone in the microscopy scientific world.

Klaus Qvortrup

EMC2024, Conference Chair