I’d like to use this President’s Voice to reflect on what we have done together over the last months, and let me start by thanking you for your continuous commitment to our Society.

When I think about my nearly two years as your President, I am very proud of the formidable response of the ESICM in supporting its members and the global Intensive Care community. If we were to draw a lesson from these turbulent times, it would be that sharing information and resources is essential because, by working together, we have succeeded in remaining united and never isolated.

These last few months, we finally met in person again: first at LIVES40 in Madrid in May, then in June during the LIVES Forum in Athens on major trauma and brain injury, and recently in Delhi for EuroAsia. The highlights of these meetings were the turnout, the scientific level, and the fantastic atmosphere among the delegates and faculty. I congratulate our friends from the Hellenic Society of Intensive Care Medicine (HSICM) and the Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine (ISCCM) for their excellent work and organisation.

In Madrid, we also launched for our members our new Airspace WebApp for the management of severe infections at the patient’s bedside. There will be even more benefits for our members: my friend and President-elect Elie Azoulay and I are working on a new project to connect our community further. So stay tuned…

Furthermore, we have established the ALIVE Solidarity initiative. Through webinars and free educational resources (such as the now multilingual C19_SPACE launched with the WHO), we have provided actionable medical insights to deal with war injuries and the challenges posed by the refugee crisis and COVID-19 in low- and middle-income countries. In addition, these digital resources allowed us to reach the global intensive care community beyond any restriction or health emergency.

And, of course, we cannot stress enough the efforts of our journals. The 2021 Impact Factor of 41.787 is the crowning achievement of the actions of the Intensive Care Medicine Journal’s editors, reviewers and authors, who have worked hard to ensure that crucial guidelines and research were published promptly to assist our community. Our warmest congratulations to Editor-in-Chief Giuseppe Citerio and his ICM team on this unprecedented achievement!

At the same time, the sister journal ICM Experimental, which focuses on translational research, is steadily growing in importance in the scientific community. Following the rigorous Web of Science selection process by Clarivate Analytics, ICMx will receive an Impact Factor as of 2023. This achievement testifies to the quality of the work produced by the journal under the leadership of Editor-in-Chief Nicole Juffermans and the Editorial Board. To all of them, our sincere congratulations!!

I am also happy to inform you that ICM will become the official Journal solely of ESICM as of January 2023, while our friends at ESPNIC will launch a new journal, ICM-PN. We wish them and new Editor-in-Chief Dick Tibbel good luck in this new venture!

At the same time, ESICM continues to assert its presence as an opinion leader on the EU stage, strengthening its position as the representative of European intensivists. The European Parliament’s Intensive Care Interest Group was established earlier this year to provide a dedicated space for EU health policy-making. In June, the Society was appointed as a member of the HERA Civil Society Advisory Forum. There, we will ensure that the response to EU health emergencies will consider the needs of European healthcare workers and patients.

We will conclude 2022 with our annual conference in Paris. Finally, back in your presence, LIVES is the place where you can absorb the latest evidence and advance in Intensive Care. We are determined to make your on-site conference experience as memorable and rewarding as ever, whether you are a physician, a nurse or allied healthcare professional. I cannot wait to see you all in Paris!

This will be the moment to celebrate the Society’s 40th anniversary, and we will proudly honour the tireless work of our 10,000 members. Thank you for selflessly devoting yourself to providing healthcare professionals with whatever resources they need.

Thanks to the help of each one of you, we have demonstrated that education and knowledge can save lives.

Together, we are Intensive Care.