The International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences (IUPESM) is the umbrella organization for the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP) and International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE). This union is regarded as the world scientific society for biomedical engineering and medical physics and federates more than 100 national societies from all the 6 continents, and the main transnational societies such as IEEE EMBSor EAMBES.

Each 3-years, the IUPESM organizes the World Congress on Medical Physics & Biomedical Engineering, which this year was in Prague (WC2018).

This was the first time that the University of Warwick was so well and successfullyrepresented in this important event!

Dr Pecchia was appointed as Honorary Member of Bosnia and Herzegovina Medical and Biological Engineering Society, for outstanding contribution to development and growth of Biomedical Engineering in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Dr Leandro Pecchia, ABSPIE Director, participating to the meeting the First IFMBE African Biomedical Engineering (BME) Forum, (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2nd - 3th March, 2018). This was a kick-off meeting of the first African Scientific Society of BME.

The meeting was attended by 12 Sub Saharian Africa Countries: Ashenafi Hussein, Ethiopia; Guy Claude Nkundabahizi, Burundi; Prince Verhoustraeten, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Kelly Maint, Mali; Sudesh Sivarasu , South Africa; George Boadu, Ghana; Prince M. O. Mbah, Nigeria; Sam Byamukama, Uganda; Samwel Hhayuma, Tanzania; Salome Mwaura, Kenya; Kouemo Tchokodjeu Emmanuel, Cameroun; Roland Laleye, Benin.

Also IFMBE participation was extraordinary: Prof James GOH (Singapore, IFMBE President), Prof Ratko MAGJAREVIC (Croatia, IFMBE Past President), Prof Kang-Ping LIN (Taiwan, IFMBE Secretary-General), Prof Marc NYSSEN (Belgium, Treasurer), Prof Mário Forjaz SECCA (Mozambique, Developing Countries Working Group), Dr Pecchia Leandro (UK, Chair of the IFMBE Health Technology Assessment Division).

The two-day meeting was hosted from the Ethiopian Ministry of Science and Technology (Day 1) and from Africa Unite (day 2), demonstrating the huge support from African Institutions, which clearly see that BME and healthcare technologies represent an outstanding and unprecedented opportunity to reinforce social and economic growth in Sub-Saharan Regions.

This is the first time such a huge number of African scientific societies of biomedical engineers and technicians meet together to share their vision and draft a possible strategy.

The main outcome of the meeting was the decision to create an interim IFMBE African Working Group, which will pave the way to the establishment of a permanent working group, during the forthcoming IFMBE World Congress. The group, Chaired from Dr Ashenafi Hussien, will focus on several action points, including: reinforce networking among African and international BMEs and Technicians, using also social media; harmonize BME&T education in the region; promote BME&T research and Innovation; promote dialogue between BME&Ts and National and International Institutions; disseminate and promote African BME&T activities in the world.

During the meeting, Dr Pecchia presented the results of the African field studies performed as cooperation among WHO, IFMBE and ABSPIE (University of Warwick) cooperation, supported by the EPSRC Warwick Impact Accelerator Award.

Davide Piaggio and Georgy Namm, respectively PhD and MEng Student members of the Applied Biomedical Signal Processing and Intelligent eHealth Lab at the University of Warwick, were shortlisted among the 6 finalist teams for the IFMBE Student Design Competition WC2018.

Davide and Georgy have been therefore invited to present and demonstrate their innovative design along with other 5 other teams in the final at the Student Design Competition at the IUPESM 2018 world congress that will be held in Prague, Czech Republic this June.

Prof Siew-Lok TOH, National University Singapore and Chair of the Competition Panel stated: "We have received overwhelming submissions for the competition and I am very pleased to inform you that you have been shortlisted as one of the 6 finalists. Thank you very much".

This is a great result for our students, proving their quality and the advanced research-oriented University of Warwick teaching philosophy.

In fact, design, assessment and maintained of healthcare technologies for low income settings is one of the priority research areas of the ABSPIE lab, the School of Engineering and the University of Warwick.

The 21st of October 2017, the world celebrates the Clinical Engineering with the II Global Clinical Engineering Day (#GlobalCEDay)!

For the second year in a row, the University of Warwick has contributed to this important event.

Last year, Prof Dan Clark and Dr Leandro Pecchia organized a talk here in Warwick, which was broadcasted worldwide during the 1^st #GlobalCEDay.

This year, Dr Leandro Pecchia participated with a short talk title “Bridging the gap between HTA and Clinical Engineering”.The 21st of October 2017, the world celebrates the Clinical Engineering with the II Global Clinical Engineering Day (#GlobalCEDay)!

For the second year in a row, the University of Warwick has contributed to this important event.

Last year, Prof Dan Clark and Dr Leandro Pecchia organized a talk here in Warwick, which was broadcast worldwide during the 1^st #GlobalCEDay

You can follow the event on the #GlobalCEDay website.

This year, Dr Leandro Pecchia participated with a short talk title “Bridging the gap between HTA and Clinical Engineering”, which is avaliable online.