ESRO governance and relation to the ESTRO Board and Committees

• ESRO is governed by ESTRO’s Education and Training Committee (ETC). The ESTRO Board appoints the Chair of the ETC and the Chair appoints members of the committee together with the Board and the other committees. The Chair and members of the ETC are appointed for three years and can be reappointed for one term for each position
• The Chair of the ETC reports to the ESTRO Board on the management, results and strategies of ESRO. For that purpose, the ETC Chair is invited regularly to attend the meetings of the ESTRO Steering Committee and prepares an annual report for the ESTRO Board and ESTRO members
• The Chair of the ETC can appoint extra members to cover specific missions for the time needed
• The ETC is steered by an Executive Committee, the ‘Core ETC’, which consists of the ETC Chair, with at least one representative of each of the sub-disciplines of radiotherapy (clinicians, physicists, radiobiologists and RTT’s) and the ESRO manager. The Core ETC meets at least four times a year; the complete ETC is invited to at least two of these meetings and the course directors to at least one of these meetings
• The Core ETC is responsible for the overall strategy of ESRO. For the implementation of this strategy, the Core ETC appeals to the ETC members and creates ad-hoc working groups
• The ETC is connected to the other standing ESTRO Committees (ESTRO physics, radiobiology, RTT, GEC-ESTRO, clinical committee) through their representatives in the Core ETC
• ESRO will support educational proposals and programmes from the Steering Committee, the other Committees and the Board of Editors of the Journal Radiotherapy and Oncology

Faculties

• Course directors are appointed by the ETC through its chair. The position of the course director is reviewed after 3-4 years; replacement is discussed at 5-7 years. In case of any major problems the ETC chair will, in cooperation with the course director and the teaching faculty, look for and decide on appropriate solutions.
• Teachers are appointed by the course director (not by the ETC). Selection criteria are expertise in the field (based on publications, references etc), pedagogical & communication skills and gender & geographical balance. Faculties usually consist of 6-8 teachers but motivated exceptions are possible. It is a general rule for ESRO courses that the entire faculty is present for the whole course and interacts both with other faculty members and with the participants. The ETC advises a phased turnover of the teachers, who should preferably be on the course for 5 – 7 years. To ensure the stability of the course, ex-teachers can be reappointed. For new courses it is preferable to keep the same faculty for at least 3 years before starting turnover.
• Course directors can also invite local people and guest lecturers to give a presentation in their course.
• Course directors can not derive personal financial benefit from a commercial company, or promote specific products.
• The programme of each course should be submitted for review to the ETC. Summaries of the yearly evaluation forms of the courses and of the main topics of the Core Curriculum covered by the course should be circulated to the entire ETC to allow it to recommend adjustment to the programme and/or the faculties if necessary.
• All ESRO course directors and teachers can attend any ESRO course they wish for free. Furthermore they also have access to all the electronic course books in an online secured pdf format.
• All course teachers are asked to give permission to share their educational material. If they agree, the material is made available to participants to the courses and in certain circumstances to ESRO (senior) fellows.

ESRO Fellows

Since the first ESTRO teaching course in 1985, we have welcomed several thousand participants to our courses and had the benefit of a large number of international experts as tutors.  Many informal contacts and networks have been created which enhance the practice of radiation oncology and underline ESTRO as an international organisation.

Keeping in touch with colleagues with similar professional interests is important and feedback from course participants supports ESRO’s plans to create a global network of (former) students and faculty members, a network of oncology fellows.  The details on benefits and conditions to become ESRO fellow will be addressed by the ETC according to the evolving educational needs and opportunities.