Brain Awareness Week
During Brain Awareness Week (14-20 March 2022), Glasgow Convention Bureau is taking the time to acknowledge the tireless work of its Conference Ambassadors; the academics that work alongside our venues and with the Glasgow Convention Bureau team to host their academic meetings in our city.
Glasgow’s Conference Ambassadors create collaboration and debate to share knowledge and research innovations through the medium of the conference session room.
Over 70% of meetings held in Glasgow are led, or supported by, one of the city’s academic institutions, and in 2022 a remarkable number of conferences taking place in Glasgow are in the field of neurology; aligning to the city’s world-class research excellence in the sector.
Glasgow’s contribution to the advancement of neurology and neuroscience extends over more than a century:
– In 1879 at Glasgow’s Royal Infirmary hospital, Willian Macewen performed the world’s first successful brain tumour removal. Knighted in 1902, Sir William was acknowledged as the first person to practise brain surgery in the modern sense and who, 100 years ago this year, was made President of the British Medical Association.
– In 1968, Professor Bryan Jennett became the University of Glasgow’s, and Scotland’s, first Chair of Neurosurgery. In 1974, he worked with Professor Graham Teasdale to create the Glasgow Coma Scale, which is used across the world to describe the level of consciousness after a brain injury.
This year, Glasgow will welcome seven leading neurology or neuroscience-related meetings, attracting approximately 10,000 delegates, which will boost the city’s economy by more than £15m through delegate spending.
Neil Brownlee, Head of Business Events at VisitScotland said: “VisitScotland’s ‘Journey to Change’ campaign champions the fact that we meet today, to change tomorrow. For Glasgow, the specialisms of neurology and neuroscience are great examples of academic success from a city that understands the impact of research excellence and innovation and how that can be championed through the meetings industry.”
This year, there are numerous public engagement events linked to these meetings that will help to take the subject matter of the conference outside the walls of the convention centre and into the community.
Dr Lorraine Work, Conference Ambassador for BRAIN & PET BRAIN 2022, from the University of Glasgow is leading a group of local Neuroscientists to run a ‘Build-a-Brain’ outreach project with primary schools in Glasgow. Sessions will be interactive and fun; encouraging children to learn, create and ask questions to a neuroscientist in their classroom.
Following these workshops, a ‘Brain Health Day’ will be brought to life through the unveiling of a giant inflatable brain within Glasgow’s Central Station on Saturday 28 May. Similar satellite events will take place on the day at other city-centre locations, where various interactive resources will be available, managed by scientists attending the conference. The public will be encouraged to move between these venues using a specially designed ‘brain map’.
During Brain Awareness Week they will launch a new guide aimed at encouraging people to make positive lifestyle changes to support better brain health and to commit their personal pledge at www.brainhealth.scot/brainhealthplan.
Neurology and Neuroscience conferences being held in Glasgow in 2022 include:
– The Congress of the European Paediatric Neurology Society (April)
– BRAIN & PET BRAIN – The International Conference on Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism (May)
– The Scottish Dementia Research Consortium (May)
– The International Behavioural Neuroscience Society (June)
– The Conference of the Organisation for Human Brain Mapping (June)
– The International Congress of Neuroendocrinology (August)
– The Glasgow Neuro Society (Nov)
