On 8 November 2011 Eurosurveillance organised a scientific seminar with three specially invited speakers to celebrate its 15-year anniversary. The seminar took place on the margins of the European Scientific Conference on Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology (ESCAIDE) at the same venue. The programme, a short introduction of the speakers and their presentations are available below.

Professor Angus Nicoll moderated the seminar.

Angus Nicoll, Influenza Coordinator at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Honorary Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Dually trained in paediatrics and public health in the United Kingdom. Following clinical practice lived and worked in Africa 1987-91 on HIV and sexually transmitted infections establishing the Mwanza Programme. From 1991 to 2005 worked with the UK Public Health Laboratory Service which became the Health Protection Agency(HPA). Guided its HIV Unlinked Anonymous Surveillance, became Head of its HIV & STD Division and then Director of the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre 2000 to 2005. Awarded CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for work after 9/11. During SARS chaired WHO meetings reviewing epidemiology and control measures. Worked extensively in China as a visiting consultant for the World Bank on communicable disease control. From 2005 Seconded National Expert from the UK HPA and as Influenza Coordinator at ECDC developed and steered its activities on influenza including its response to avian influenza A(H5N1), its work on pandemic preparedness and seasonal influenza and with many others ECDC’s response to the 2009 A(H1N1) pandemic in 2009-10. Joined ECDC properly as a staff member to work leading the Influenza Programme and on Internal Public Health Training in August 2011.

Dr Kevin Fenton from CDC Atlanta speaks on the subject of "30 years of HIV/AIDS prevention in western industrialized settings: what have we learned, where should we be headed?".

Kevin Fenton MD PhD FFPH is the Director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, USA. In this role he oversees the agency's prevention research, program and policy portfolios and activities for the United States and allied global partners. A public health specialist and infectious disease epidemiologist, Dr Fenton has worked in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the Caribbean with special focus on surveillance, behavioral research, health inequities, migration and HIV, and sexual health.

Professor Christian Drosten from the University of Bonn talks on "Emerging diseases – highlights from Eurosurveillance".

Christian Drosten graduated in human medicine in 2000 from the University of Frankfurt. In 2000 he joined the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg where he held several posts, most recently as Director of Clinical Virology. His more important achievements include the identification of the causative agent of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), in 2003. Drosten has specialised in the biology and ecology of exotic viruses, including the development of new virus detection methods. From May 2007, Drosten holds the chair as Professor of Virology at the University of Bonn. At the same time he assumed the management of the newly founded Institute for Virology at the Bonn University Hospital.

Pippa Smart, of PSP Consultancy, gives a presentation on "A publishing revolution fuelled by technology".

Pippa Smart is a research consultant working for her own company, PSP Consulting. She provides training and advice to editors and publishers, specialising in scholarly journal development and intellectual property rights. She spent almost 20 years working for commercial and non-profit academic/research publishers including Blackwell Science, in a variety of roles from production management to business development and editorial management. She then spent several years working for the development agency, INASP, supporting editors and publishers in the developing world. She currently writes the monthly newsletter for the Association of Learned Professional and Scholarly Publishers (ALPSP), runs her own training course for medical editors in Oxford, and works around the world with publishers and editors developing their own academic publications.