In 2018 the yearly meeting focused on ocular surface diseases, hosted in the truly beautiful city of Florence. The Italian Society of Veterinary Ophthalmology 

(SOVI) satellite meeting took place on the 12th of May with David Maggs, Sara Thomasy, Claudio Peruccio and Akihiko Saito as speakers. The Italian meeting was followed by the ECVO continuing education day where Sara Thomasy and David Maggs held great lectures again, supported by Ingrid Allgoewer and Rick Sanchez. During the afternoon, the AGM meeting took place, where Jimmy Saunders added important information regarding EBVS regulations.
The main conference was the largest one up to date with more than 500 delegates participating and a fully subscribed Masterclass and workshop on sunday.
For the first time,the Resident's session covered most of Fridays oral presentations, followed by the traditional Friday afternoon HED session where the use of Kahoot was enthusiastically welcomed by delegates.
Many high-quality scientific presentationsfollowed on Saturday, as well as the amazing state of the art lecture given by Julie Daniels (CAN COMPANION ANIMALS BENEFIT FROM ADVANCES IN HUMAN OPHTHALMIC STEM CELL THERAPY?). This year fifty scientific posters were presented during the conference and for the first time attending delegates were able to vote for the two best posters.
Eduardo Villani, Claudio Peruccio, Sara Thomasy and Simon Pot gaveadditional insights on ocular surface diseases during Sunday morning's masterclass and 40 delegates participated in the afternoon workshop called Meibography & Tearscope examination, supervised by the speakers of the SOVI meeting. Delegates were able to practice with the latest technology and equipment for adnexal, tear film and ocular surface examination. 

The abstracts are available at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/vop.12605

The Welcome Reception was timed perfectly at the end of a drizzly afternoon and took place in front of the conference center. The Reception and the Gala dinner, were held in a historical Palazzo next to Ponte Vecchio giving the opportunity to exchange formal and less formal information between colleagues, peers and friends. 

The ECVO was able to welcome six new Diplomates in 2018: 
Laura Barachetti, Aurelie Bourguet, Carolin Chiwitt, Rachael Grundon, Ingo Hoffmann and James Rushton, 
as well as two affiliate members: Eva Abarca and Ann Strom 
and one associate member: Alain Regnier.

Genereous prizes were awarded to:

Best and second best oral resident presentation:
1. Negar Hamzianpour: Evaluation of owner perceptions of the quality of life of their dogs before and after bilateral enucleation
2. Lena Strom: Age-associated changes in the equine flash visual evoked potential

Best oral presentation:
Marina Leis: Characterization of the ocular surface microbiome in the healthy dog: a novel perspective using hihg-throughput sequencing

Best and second best poster:
1. Andrea Steinmetz: Advancement flap free lip graft for reconstruction of the upper eyelid after resection of a melanoma in a horse
2. Eva Gimenez Mainer: Synophthalmia and holoprosencephaly in a foal

Call for applications for ECVO Research Grants will be announced later in the year.