VOLUME 30, ISSUE 3 • September 2026. Full issue »
The MDS-European Section: Looking back, looking ahead
From Tallinn to Paris, via Padua, Philadelphia, Helsinki, Honolulu, Lübeck, and Geneva, the last three years of the MDS-European Section have brought us to memorable places, moments and important milestones for the Section. With the 2025-2027 team now in place, this is a good time to look back — and to say a few words about what comes next.
Much of what happened in this term goes back to the Strategic Meeting in Tallinn in 2022, hosted by Pille Taba (Tartu) during her time as Chair. That meeting laid the groundwork for the years that followed, including the idea of a signature MDS-ES scientific event of our own. In early 2024, Padua was where that idea took shape. The ES Executive Committee strategic planning meeting was held back-to-back with our very first MDS-ES Focused Workshop, “Diagnostic and Progression Biomarkers in Parkinson’s Disease and Atypical Parkinsonism” (February 29 - March 2, 2024). Sitting together in the Aula Magna “Galileo Galilei” of Palazzo Bo — the same hall in which Galileo once taught — was a fitting setting to initiate the first ES Focused Workshop.
Two years later, in Paris in February 2026, Jean-Christophe Corvol hosted the ES Executive Committee strategic planning meeting in Paris to sharpen the Section’s priorities for 2025-2027, plan future regional courses and Focused Workshops, strengthen the involvement of young Movement Disorders specialists, and build closer links with basic research through a new “Grow Together” program fostering interactions between MD and PhD.
The second Focused Workshop, “Parkinson’s Disease Decoded: Genes, Environment, and the Epidemiological Challenge,” was in Lübeck from May 8-10, 2026, after being developed through discussions at the MDS International Congresses in Philadelphia (2024) and Honolulu (2025). Around 220 colleagues from 41 countries gathered in the Audimax of the University of Lübeck, confirming that the Focused Workshop series has become a mainstay of the European movement disorders calendar.
Education has been at the heart of Section’s activity, through regional courses, teaching sessions, and mentoring activities. Particularly encouraging is the emergence of a highly engaged and well-trained new generation of movement disorder specialists and researchers. At the 2024 EAN Congress, for example, Francesca Magrinelli, a young MDS-ES member, stepped in at short notice to deliver the MDS C. David Marsden Award lecture on behalf of Vladimir Kostić who could not attend. The tradition of excellence continued with Enza Maria Valente delivering the MDS C. David Marsden Lecture in 2025 and Bastiaan Bloem in 2026 during the MDS-ES European Basal Ganglia Club – an annual MDS highlight during the EAN Congress.
We also strengthened links with national movement disorders societies across Europe through direct outreach, opening a conversation through video calls, rather than sending circular emails, bringing an additional six new societies into the MDS-ES affiliate society network. ES is pleased to continue conversation and outreach to the 29 current MDS-ES Affiliate Member Societies with a virtual Leadership Roundtable at the end of 2026.
The renewed and strengthened agreement with the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) has been another major achievement. It provides MDS-ES a stable platform within the EAN Congress and reinforces the visibility of movement disorders in the European neurological landscape, as illustrated by the strong presence of the field at the 2026 EAN Congress in Geneva.
Christine Klein’s term as Chair ended at the 40th International Congress in Honolulu in October 2025, and the momentum has continued under Jean-Christophe Corvol. None of this is the work of one Chair. These achievements belong to the entire Executive Committee, the International Secretariat — with a special thanks to Heather Vitale, our outstanding European Section representative —, our EAN partners, the other MDS Sections, and colleagues across Europe and beyond. Moving along, indeed.
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