The MICCAI Society is a professional organization for scientists in the areas of Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Interventions. Due to the multidisciplinary nature of these fields, the society brings together researchers from several scientific disciplines. including computer science, robotics, physics, and medicine. The society is best known for its annual flagship event, The MICCAI Conference, which facilitates the publication and presentation of original research on MICCAI-related topics. However, the society provides endorsements and sponsorships for several scientific events each year.

History

In 1998, three international conferences: Visualization in Biomedical Computing (VBC), Computer Vision and Virtual Reality in Robotics and Medicine (CVRMed), and Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery (MRCAS) merged into a single conference entitled "The International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Interventions" (abbreviated MICCAI) with its first edition in Boston. The MICCAI Society was founded in 2004 by several active members of this research community and former chairs of the MICCAI conference. In 2009, the society introduced the "MICCAI Fellow" award to recognize senior members who had made substantial contributions to the MICCAI community. 12 fellows were elected in 2009 and three additional fellows are elected each year. New MICCAI Fellows are announced each year at the Annual MICCAI Conference. Since 2012, the society is involved in several events each year outside of the annual conference through endorsements and/or sponsorships. These include a number of smaller international conferences, MICCAI-focused workshop sessions at related conferences, and educational programs such as "summer schools".

Research focus

Medical Image Computing

Medical Image Computing (the "MIC" in MICCAI) is the field of study involving the application of image processing and computer vision to medical imaging. The goals of medical image computing tasks are diverse, but some common examples are computer-aided diagnosis, image segmentation of anatomical structures and/or abnormalities, and the registration or "alignment" of medical images acquired through different means or at different points in time.

Computer Assisted Interventions

Computer Assisted Interventions (the "CAI" in MICCAI) is the field of study concerned with the use of computational tools in medical interventions. Prominent examples of computer assisted interventions currently in widespread use include image guided biopsy and robot-assisted surgery. Integral to this research area is effective human-computer interaction and user interface design.

Subgroups

Within the MICCAI community, a number of organizations have emerged to represent and advocate for certain populations of MICCAI researchers. Among these are the MICCAI Student Board, the Women in MICCAI and RISE-MICCAI.

MICCAI Student Board

The MICCAI Student Board began in 2010 when MICCAI initiated its social media presence by creating a facebook group. This effort was championed by student researchers who used the group to organize events specifically for students at the 2011 and 2012 annual conferences. After the 2012 event, the MICCAI board of directors formally recognized the MICCAI student board as a part of the society and began providing support for the student board's annual events.

Women in MICCAI

Women in MICCAI began as a series of networking sessions for female researchers within the medical image analysis research community during the 2015 MICCAI conference and the 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging. In October 2016, the MICCAI board of directors approved a measure to create the "Women in MICCAI Committee" with the goal of strengthening the representation of female scientists in this research area.

Since its inception, Women in MICCAI has continued to organize networking sessions in conjunction with MICCAI events. It also developed and maintains several online platforms for discussion on social media. The committee is the primary interface between the MICCAI board of directors and the community of women researchers in MICCAI.

RISE-MICCAI

RISE is the acronym for Reinforcing Inclusiveness & diverSity and Empowering MICCAI in Low-to-Middle Income Countries. RISE-MICCAI was formed to help researchers in underrepresented groups who work on the field of medical image computing and computer assisted interventions. Its goal is to strengthen the presence of minority researchers from low- to middle-income countries and build collaborative bridges across countries.

Annual MICCAI conference

Conference format

MICCAI conferences are typically scheduled for five days, of which the first and last days are set aside for satellite events consisting of tutorials, workshops, and challenges. Those include the Brain lesion workshop (BrainLes), the Workshop on Interpretability of Machine Intelligence in Medical Image Computing (iMIMIC), the Workshop on Domain Adaptation and Representation Transfer (DART), the International Workshop on Multimodal Brain Image Analysis (MBIA), and others. The main conference includes invited presentations, panel discussions, and podium and poster presentations of original research papers which are published by Springer Nature as conference proceedings.

Past MICCAI conferences

Year Dates Location General Chair(s) 2025 September 23–27, 2025 Daejeon Jinah Park, Polina Golland, and Jonghyo Kim 2024 October 6–10, 2024 Marrakesh Karim Lekadir and Julia Schnabel 2023 October 8–12, 2023 Vancouver Tanveer Syeda-Mahmood, James Duncan, and Russ Taylor 2022 September 18–22, 2022 Singapore Shuo Li 2021 September 27 - October 1, 2021 Strasbourg Caroline Essert 2020 October 4–8, 2020 Lima Daniel Racoceanu, Leo Joskowicz 2019 October 13–17, 2019 Shenzhen Dinggang Shen 2018 September 16–20, 2018 Granada Alejandro Frangi Caregnato 2017 September 10–14, 2017 Quebec City Simon Duchesne 2016 October 17–21, 2016 Athens Sebastien Ourselin, Aytül Erçil 2015 October 5–9, 2015 Munich Nassir Navab 2014 September 14–18, 2014 Cambridge Polina Golland 2013 September 22–26, 2013 Nagoya Kensaku Mori 2012 October 1–5, 2012 Nice Nicholas Ayache 2011 September 18–22, 2011 Toronto Gabor Fichtinger 2010 September 20–24, 2010 Beijing Tianzi Jiang 2009 September 20–24, 2009 London Guang-Zhong Yang 2008 September 6–10, 2008 New York City Dimitris Metaxas 2007 October 29 - November 2, 2007 Brisbane Anthony Maeder 2006 October 1–6, 2006 Copenhagen Mads Nielsen 2005 October 26–29, 2005 Palm Springs James Duncan 2004 September 26–29, 2004 St. Malo Christian Barillot 2003 November 15–18, 2003 Montreal Terry Peters 2002 September 25–28, 2002 Tokyo Takeyoshi Dohi 2001 October 14–17, 2001 Utrecht Max Viergever 2000 October 11–14, 2000 Pittsburgh Anthony M. DiGoia 1999 September 19–22, 1999 Cambridge Alan Colchester 1998 October 11–13, 1998 Boston Ron Kikinis

Upcoming MICCAI conferences

Year Dates Location General Chair(s) 2026 October 4 – 8, 2026 Abu Dhabi Mohammad Yaqub, Islem Rekik, and Qi Dou 2027 September 26 – October 1, 2027 Auckland Jichao Zhao, Gabor Fichtinger, and Stamatia Giannarou 2028 October 16 – 20, 2028 São Paulo Natasha Leporé, Leticia Rittner, and Marius George Linguraru

Publications

The MICCAI conference proceedings consist of full-length papers which undergo comprehensive peer review. Since even before the merger of the CVRMed, MRCAS, and VBC conferences (see History), the proceedings of the annual conference have been published by Springer Nature as part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series.

In addition to the proceedings of the annual conference, MICCAI officially partners with two peer reviewed scientific journals: "Medical Image Analysis" published by Elsevier and "The International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery" (IJCARS) published by Springer Nature. These journals loosely correspond to the "MIC" and "CAI" focuses of the MICCAI Society respectively, but they have substantial overlap in subject matter.

The MICCAI Society also partners with Elsevier to develop a series of books on MICCAI-related research, written by scientists in the MICCAI research community. , 19 books have been published in this series.

See also Robot-assisted surgery Computer vision Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition International Conference on Computer Vision European Conference on Computer Vision Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers International Society for Computer Aided Surgery

References

External links The MICCAI Society Website