Dear Colleagues, dear AEPC members,

My professional and scientific career has been closely associated with the AEPC. As a member from the early 1990’s, a councillor, chairman of the WG for Cardiac Dysrhythmias and Electrophysiology, local chair of the 49^th Annual AEPC Meeting in 2015 in Prague, and Mannheimer Lecturer at the 54^th Annual AEPC Meeting in 2021, I could experience the great developments of the Association during the past decades. It is thus my greatest honour to serve as the president of the AEPC for the three years to come and to follow many distinguished personalities who have led, shaped, and developed the Association before. On a more personal note, as coming from the former eastern part of Europe, the AEPC has also been my first connection to a great international professional community outside of the strict regime barriers we had around.

The AEPC (www.aepc.org) is a worldwide leading professional and scientific society in the field of paediatric and congenital heart medicine with a steadily growing membership of over 1400 professionals, currently including 386 (28%) junior and 131 non-European members. The association benefits from very active working groups (https://www.aepc.org/working-groups) being the source of most of its scientific and teaching activity and three important committees (educational, scientific, and coding) carrying daily business and supporting the AEPC council along with the AEPC office and PCO run by the Kenes Group. An important role of the AEPC lies in postgraduate education. Currently, bi-monthly educational webinars (https://www.aepc.org/aepc-webinars) organised in cooperation with the European Reference Network GuardHeart (https://guardheart.ern-net.eu/) are provided to both members and non-members. An AEPC exam and certification in paediatric and congenital cardiology are offered to interested physicians upon completion of training (https://www.aepc.org/aepc-certification-of-basic-training-in-paediatric-and-congenital-cardiology).

Thus, the AEPC is a highly structured professional and scientific association with no need for larger structural changes at this point.

For the years to come, the AEPC may focus on the following developments and changes:

• Benefit from the increasing political focus within the European Union on rare diseases, from which the majority of our patients are suffering. Cooperation with the respective European Reference Network GuardHeart has been established in the meantime and may be further developed.

• Adapt to the fast developments in the field of artificial intelligence and big data acquisition and analysis, which will necessarily affect our field.

• Continue to be attractive for the non-European colleagues and promote the development of worldwide scientific and professional connections.

• Incorporate more congenital heart surgeons into AEPC activities, given the fact of the highly interactive field of interventional paediatric/congenital cardiovascular care.

• Continue to promote the AEPC to nurses and associated professions.

• Help to improve and support paediatric/congenital cardiovascular medicine in regions with either underdeveloped or threatened care, specifically including Ukraine.

The annual AEPC meetings will continue to be the yearly highlights of the association’s life. Organised by local teams with major help from the AEPC Scientific Committee and the Kenes PCO, they are the biggest yearly events in the field, bearing high scientific quality, offering intense social contacts, and at the same time keeping a special flavour of the organising city and country. Their high attractiveness is given by an international faculty coming from all continents, a total number of around 80 scientific sessions, and about 800 submitted abstracts, and underscored by an increasing number of participants, reaching from 1 400 – 1 500 attendees in the last two years.

We, as the AEPC, are looking forward to cooperating with you, both members and non-members, to prepare for the new challenges in paediatric and congenital cardiovascular medicine to come and to work for the benefit of patients with congenital heart disease around Europe and the whole world. The AEPC is keen to keep this wonderful group of physicians, nurses, and associated professionals together who provide care to such a special and vulnerable population of mainly young patients with prevailingly rare cardiovascular disease.

Our art is in innovation, dedication, and cooperation across any barriers. Thank you!