Dear members of the PPS, dear colleagues and friends

It is really my great honour and a real joy to address you as the President of our Society.

I am deeply honoured to be President of the PPS and I want to express my sincere and deep thanks to our previous presidents, who made our Society really great and successful. I also want to thank all the Honorary Officers and Committee members who served the Society and contributed to make it a vibrant representative of paediatric pathology in Europe and elsewhere.

I took over the office from Prof. Michael Ashworth after extremely difficult times that forced us to transform our major activities, as our last two congresses, from presential to virtual meetings. However, we have come a long way and thanks to the efforts of our Officers and Greig Somerville (IT support) we have learned a lot about the use of innovative digital technologies. The last PPS meetings were a real success and for this, I wish to express here my sincere thanks and acknowledgement to all Committee members. They all did a great job and I believe you agree with me that the last congress was a great success. Although everybody is now looking forward to the time when we can have our meetings in person again, we have discovered that new technologies can save a lot of time and traveling and can be used to reach more people and open new horizons.

Europe is very heterogeneous when it comes to the development in our area of expertise, and we still have a difficult task ahead to improve the practice of paediatric and perinatal pathology in many countries. I believe that the PPS has an important role, as expressed in our Constitution, in the promotion of research and knowledge in Paediatric and Perinatal Pathology. We can now use digital technologies to reach pathologists everywhere and help the development of paediatric and perinatal pathology; we can use technology to support young pathologists, and to facilitate education and training all over Europe and beyond. It is the perfect time to modernize our Society and take advantage of these new tools to our advantage. It is the perfect time to modernize our Society and take advantage of these new digital tools. It is also the best time to reinforce our partnership with other Societies (SPP, SLAPPE, ESP and IPPA) as in these difficult times we are stronger if we are united. There is light at the end of the tunnel, and we really hope that our next congress in Budapest would revert to a presential meeting, at least in part. It will be great to meet old friends and make acquaintance with new members. Nothing can replace meeting friends and colleagues face to face, and I really hope that we shall meet in person next year.

Paula Borralho-Nunes
PPS President