30 years of UEG: What has been achieved and what does the future hold?

The 30th UEG Week took place in Vienna at the Messe Wien Exhibition and Congress Center between 8 and 11 October 2022. It was the first face to face meeting of UEG for 3 years, the previous two UEG Weeks having been delivered in the virtual format. The participants were delighted to return to the vibrant, friendly, family atmosphere they had come to love, with the total number of attendees returning almost to pre-Covid levels. It was a triumph. There were frequent reminders that this was a significant anniversary meeting which included clinical topic based 30 year reviews and teatime treats in the social spaces, culminating in an anniversary scientific session which reviewed the outstanding progress that had be made during the last 3 decades in managing four of the most challenging diseases in gastroenterology and hepatology; hepatitis C, pancreatic cancer, gastric cancer, and inflammatory bowel disease. Following these high-quality scientific papers, I gave a brief account of UEG's history, focusing predominantly on progress made during the last 3 years which is described below. The session closed with a short musical interlude and a firework display!.