European Congress of Thermology 1974-2021-an Up-Dated Historical Perspective

ABSTRACT

This is an updated historical perspective on the European Thermology Congresses in the period from 2009 to 2021. As with the previous review article, the schedules for lectures, the lists of delegates, books, congress proceedings and photos of the congress participants were checked from the recent 5 conferences. Descriptive statistics were compiled regarding the origin of the participants, the number of participants and presentations per conference and the topics of the presentations. In total 275 presentations have been given at the recent 5 European Congresses of Thermology. The median number of delegates at the congresses between 2009 and 2021 was 61, slightly higher than the median number of participants in the period 1990 to 2006 despite the pandemic-related low number of participants in the online congress 2021. Approximately 20% of all presentation originated from outside of Europe. There was a shift of topics predominant in the first 10 and the 5 recent congresses. In the period from 2009 to 2021, the topic of sport and/or exercise was at the top, followed by applications in veterinary medicine, vascular diseases, and standards/quality assurance. The Online Congress 2021 suffered from the COVID-19 pandemic but mastered this difficult challenge quite well in terms of scientific output. Similar as the scientific literature on thermology, the history of the recent five European Congress of Thermology reflects the trends in thermographic research with a currently high interest in standard protocols for applications in sports and exercise science, animal thermography and vascular diseases.