13th IPCRG World Conference and 1st North African Interdisciplinary Respiratory Forum

Join us in Tunis, Tunisia on 11-14 June 2026 for the 13th IPCRG World Conference and 1st North African Interdisciplinary Respiratory Forum. This conference coincides with the 25th anniversary of IPCRG's founding, so we hope you will join us to celebrate at what is set to be a memorable conference. Our Scientific Programme Committee includes familiar IPCRG faces as well as experts from the North Africa region, and we have consulted with our network on what workshops you are most keen to see, because we want this to be our most interactive conference yet.

Our 13th IPCRG World Conference and 1st North African Interdisciplinary Respiratory Forum aims to:

1. Share knowledge and experience from around the world about how to deliver good quality care, including in family medicine, primary care centres and outpatient clinic settings
2. Share, discuss and review respiratory research conducted in these settings; sometimes called “real life research” and including implementation research
3. Build a sustainable network of people with a shared interest in IPCRG’s vision of a global population breathing and feeling well through universal access to right care

The conference website will launch by mid-September and will include full details of the abstract categories, submission process, registration and a first edition of the programme. We look forward to sharing more news about the conference soon. For now, click the links above to add the event to your calendar, and see below for information about abstracts including key dates and submission instructions. Tunisia is an accessible country with lower requirements for visas than many other countries, with an easy e-visa application system for those who need one. We encourage you to research this in advance when planning your attendance.

What do we mean by primary respiratory care?

How primary care is defined varies considerably globally, but as the only global primary care respiratory group, that represents primary care on the WHO-convened network GARD, our view is that it includes these functions, whoever typically provides them:

• First contact respiratory care
• Diagnosis of common CRDs such as COPD, asthma and rhinitis
• Management of common CRDs and common symptoms such as cough and breathlessness over time
• Referral to appropriate specialists and continued management following discharge
• Leadership of these services in the community and neighbourhoods including public protection eg awareness raising and protection from environmental harms
• Teaching and capacity building of the local system to improve the quality of care
• Under-graduate and post-graduate clinical teaching in the diagnosis and long term management of CRDs including prevention and management of respiratory infections, tobacco dependence
• Quality assurance
• Real life research in community settings including general practice, walk in emergency departments, community clinics, at home

• Opening date for abstract submissions: 1 October 2025.
• Abstract submission closing date: 22 February 2026. This is the regular deadline for abstract submissions.
• Late breaking abstract deadline: 19 April 2026. This is only for new data and is limited to 10 abstracts. For these submissions a fee of €50 is charged, which has to paid before the abstract is accepted.
• Résumés de conférence en langue française: 19 avril 2026. Cette date limite de soumission des résumés en français pour une session de posters et une session de discussion.
• Early submissions deadline: 14 December 2025. A decision will be notified by 23 December 2025. This early deadline is to help those in need of longer timelines e.g. for visa applications.

Clinical Research Results

• Your abstract may be a summary of the findings of exploratory, effectiveness or implementation research that addresses a clinical question and uses a research method. You must include data and the work must be relevant to a primary care audience with an interest in respiratory health. Bear in mind that IPCRG campaigns for patient care to be evidence-based, using evidence from real life, and includes populations representative of primary care populations.
• The questions from our Research Prioritisation exercise provide a useful guide to what would be of most interest to our audience.
• Use the IMRaD format (meta-analyses may require a different format), including an Introduction, Method, Results and Discussion. 

Research Ideas

• The Research Ideas category is for proposals for research that has been carefully planned but is yet to be conducted. This can include protocols for approved research, which may already be underway.
• The abstract should include the research question, background, methodology and questions to discuss.
• IPCRG actively encourages practitioners to submit an abstract, being aware that there are few academic centres of primary respiratory care. We would be delighted to receive abstracts describing a research question and a methodology that can then benefit from peer discussion and challenge to increase research capability in primary care respiratory research. 
• The questions from our Research Prioritisation exercise are a good starting point for your research ideas, and ideas can include air quality, tobacco use and dependence, physical activity, breathlessness, cough, asthma, COPD, multi-morbidity including chronic respiratory disease, respiratory infections including TB, RSV and post-COVID syndrome.

Service Development & Evaluation

• Service Development & Evaluation abstracts should evaluate an intervention to create and/or improve a service or interventions that benefit respiratory health, including educational interventions and quality improvement programmes. This can include surveys.
• It should include the aim, outline of context, a brief description of the change and why you thought it would work, your strategy for change, impact and lessons learned.