Tying ECNP’s activities together in 2024 was the ECNP Roadmap on Precision Psychiatry initiative, to build alignment around a biologically based diagnostic framework for neuropsychiatric disorders. The initiative was launched at the ECNP New Frontiers Meeting in Nice, France, on 17-18 March 2024, ‘A consensus roadmap for a new diagnostic framework for mental disorders’, which brought together stakeholders from all over the world to explore the precision psychiatry’s progress and potential. The momentum of the meeting also carried into the ECNP Knowledge Hub, the College’s new online learning and content platform. Building on the experience of ECNP’s longstanding Workshop on Applied Neuroscience and former Schools, the Knowledge hub brought together a range of new online course to bridge fundamental brain research and treatment science and open the way to new approaches and, ultimately, new therapies.
In an allied spirit, the ECNP Early Career Academy (ECA) was founded to nurture young talent by offering a career launchpad into applied neuroscience and providing a pathway through the College’s array of learning and career development opportunities. The ECNP Networks programme was also expanded, in keeping with the College’s mission to foster European research alliances and provide a platform to educate, inspire and disseminate applied neuroscience research, with the admission of two new Thematic Working Groups (TWGs), on Clinical Outcomes in Early-Phase Clinical Trials and Perinatal Psychiatry.
ECNP’s suite of awards recognised the field’s outstanding contributions to applied neuroscience and translational research with the ECNP Neuropsychopharmacology Award being conferred on Elias Eriksson, Sweden; the ECNP Lifetime Achievement Award on Jan van Ree, the Netherlands, and Tomas Hökfelt, Sweden; and the ECNP Rising Star Award on Cristiana Cruceanu, Sweden, and Robert McCutcheon, United Kingdom. Over 100 other awards and subsidies were given to early career scientists and researchers from countries with a developing economy.
In October the 37th ECNP Congress was held in Milan, attracting almost 7,000 participants from some 100 countries, including nearly 700 online. Further highlights included the ongoing strengthening of the ECNP journal European Neuropsychopharmacology (impact factor of 6.1) and the consolidation of ECNP’s new open-access title, Neuroscience Applied, both targeting the intersection between human biology, neuropsychiatric disorders, and treatment science; the ninth ECNP Workshop on Clinical Research Methods in Barcelona in November; and the 140,000th download of the Neuroscience-based Nomenclature (NbN) app.
Making precision psychiatry a reality was also the basis of the ECNP Roadmap Meeting on Precision Psychiatry on 20-21 January 2025, Frankfurt, Germany, attended by 150 scientists, industry professionals, regulators and patients, and will be further developed at the 2025 ECNP New Frontiers Meeting, ‘Targeting neural circuits in psychiatry’, on 23-24 March in Nice, France.