IMC21 Preview: ‘Olympics of Microscopy’ coming to Liverpool, UK
With less than three months to go before this year’s premier event for the global microscopy community kicks off in Liverpool, UK, we’re taking a closer look at what’s in store for attendees – from the blockbuster scientific programme to a world-class exhibition, workshops, networking and more!
The RMS is honoured to be delivering this year’s premier event for the global microscopy community alongside the International Federation of Societies for Microscopy (IFSM), Liverpool University and all our other partners.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Congress Themes
IMC21 features a blockbuster scientific programme, organised into three separate themes and comprising no fewer than 32 different symposia.
With almost 1,700 talk and poster abstracts submitted – plus a surge of late-breaking posters - a huge range of scientific content awaits; so now’s the time to familiarise yourself with what’s on the menu, and start to plan your IMC21 experience!
“The congress creates a platform for groundbreaking scientific research for inspiring the next generation of scientists and for establishing collaborations across all scientific disciplines.” – Nigel Browning
Life Sciences – ‘Imaging Innovation Meets Biology’
Overview by Co-Chairs Gail McConnell and David Bhella
As the world of microscopy focuses on Liverpool for the 21st International Microscopy Congress, we look forward to an exciting programme of life-science research. IMC21 will showcase innovation across imaging modalities and the application of cutting-edge microscopy methods to address key questions in biology that span length scales from molecules to organisms.
Cryo-EM - Innovations in macromolecular structure determination will showcase how this disruptive technology continues to transform structural biology, highlighting technological advances that improve data quality and throughput. Integration of new AI tools better enables interpretation of these data, yielding insights into protein dynamics and accelerating model building. Moving the focus of structural biology into the cellular and tissue context, innovations highlighted in Cryo-ET – Macromolecular Imaging in Cells, Organoids and Tissues include advances in specimen preparation, high-speed automated tomography, and computational tools to uncover mechanism through interrogation of noisy, challenging cryo-ET datasets. The promise of molecular imaging at tissue scale has led to an explosion of interest in Volume Imaging in the electron microscope and this session will be a real highlight of IMC21, showcasing how techniques such as serial block-face imaging and array tomography can map the complexity of biological systems.
IMC21’s life sciences programme places light microscopy firmly at the centre of biological research, with a series of dedicated symposia reflecting both technological progress and expanding application areas. In Live Imaging Cells, Tissues, Organs and Organisms, the focus will be on capturing dynamic biological processes in real time, from intracellular events to development at the organismal level. This is complemented by Resolution Revolution in Light Microscopy, where ongoing advances in super-resolution and optical engineering continue to push beyond traditional diffraction limits, opening new windows on molecular organisation.
The importance of imaging in three dimensions is further highlighted in Volumetric Imaging, with techniques enabling increasingly detailed reconstruction of complex biological structures across scales. At the same time, Democratisation and Widening Access to Microscopy signals a growing emphasis on accessibility, reproducibility, and global collaboration, ensuring that cutting-edge methods are widely available across the international research community.
Light microscopy is also deeply embedded within the broader life sciences themes. Strong links to enabling technologies via Machine Learning in Biological Imaging point to the increasing role of artificial intelligence in image acquisition and analysis, while multimodal sessions such as Neurosciences, Pathogen Biology, Plant Sciences, and Correlated Imaging Across Length Scales highlight how a broad range of cutting edge imaging technologies are being brought to bear to provide comprehensive biological insight.
Together, these symposia highlight a field that is not only rapidly evolving but increasingly unified, where technologies converge to reveal biology in unprecedented detail. IMC21 will capture this momentum, showcasing how imaging innovation is reshaping our understanding of life across spatial and temporal scales.
Physical Sciences – ‘An exciting, forward-looking programme’
Overview by Co-Chairs Peter Nellist and Sarah Haigh
The International Microscopy Congress (IMC) conference is a highlight for any microscopist, and has often been described at the “Olympics” of microscopy as it only occurs once every four years. For IMC21 this summer we are looking forward to welcoming you to the vibrant city of Liverpool. Bringing together leading researchers, early career scientists, innovators, practitioners, trade suppliers and scientific societies from across disciplines, the congress offers a chance to meet and interact with colleagues from across the globe.
It has been our pleasure to co-chair the Physical Sciences theme of the congress. With this theme there are 11 individual symposia with a wide range of topics covering the applications of advanced microscopy methods within physical sciences. The breadth of materials science covered is impressive. Dedicated sessions explore soft materials, polymers, and beam-sensitive materials, alongside two-dimensional materials, nanomaterials and catalysts, functional ceramics and oxides, and structural materials such as metals and alloys.
Further sessions delve into highly topical areas including semiconductors, quantum materials, and ICT, magnetic materials, ferroelectrics, energy storage and conversion, and radiation damage and nuclear energy under extreme conditions. Along with earth and planetary materials, these themes underline the crucial role microscopy plays in addressing global challenges, from sustainable energy to next-generation computing technologies. The inclusion of phase transformations and high-speed dynamics sessions also emphasises the importance of understanding materials in motion—capturing processes as they happen rather than after the fact.
This diversity ensures that the Physical Sciences theme is relevant to researchers working across both fundamental and applied domains. What makes this theme truly exceptional is how it integrates all these topics into a coherent and forward-looking programme which will allow us to hear from leaders in the field and early career scientists with new ideas. It reflects not only where microscopy is today, but where it is heading. We are delighted with the number of abstracts submitted to this theme at IMC21 – more than 700 in total! – and don’t forget, ‘late-breaking’ poster abstracts will continue to be accepted until 26 June. We are genuinely excited about the science we are going to hear about and the discussions we will have, and we look forward to seeing you there.
Instrumentation - Instrumentation Matters: Come to see the latest driving force for advances in microscopy in action
Overview by Co-chairs Jun Yuan and Cate Ducati
Breakthroughs in microscopy are often celebrated for the biological or materials discoveries they enable. The Instrumentation theme of IMC21 focuses on the advances in hardware, software and methodology that make those breakthroughs possible. Progress in nanoscale imaging depends on sustained development in optics, detectors, contrast mechanisms, sample environments, automation and data handling. This is where many of our future discoveries will begin.
From aberration correction and ptychography to ultrafast imaging, environmental microscopy and AI-assisted analysis, the Instrumentation theme provides a forum for those who develop the methods that determine what can be seen, measured and interpreted. At a time when microscopy is becoming increasingly specialised, this kind of cross-disciplinary discussion is particularly important.
Across eight symposia, the theme brings together recent advances in instrument design and measurement approaches: hardware, automation and AI; diffraction and 4D-STEM; dynamic and environmental techniques; phase imaging; quantitative 3D tomography; surface-sensitive methods, including SEM, FIB, helium ion microscopy and LEEM/PEEM; scanning probe and advanced light microscopy; and spectroscopy, including emerging laser–electron approaches. The common thread is quantitative, multimodal and, where possible, operando characterisation. Examples include mapping magnetic fields using ptychography, following catalyst evolution in a gas cell, and combining FIB-SEM with atom probe tomography for 3D analysis. In each case, instrumentation and computation are closely linked: better experiments depend not only on better signals, but also on better ways of extracting reliable information from them.
We are also pleased that the theme brings together physical and life sciences. Instrumentation ideas often move productively between fields, sometimes in unexpected directions. We are grateful to the symposium organisers for assembling a strong programme of invited speakers and contributed presentations, and for helping to create a theme that reflects the breadth of current instrumentation development.
We are particularly looking forward to discussions on real-time automation and AI-assisted microscopy. The prospect of a microscope that can acquire data, recognise features or phases, adjust acquisition conditions and guide the next measurement is now within reach. We are also keen to hear about ultrafast and phase-sensitive approaches, including structured beams, PINEM and other laser-coupled or quantum-coherent methods that can probe dynamics on intrinsic length and time scales. Finally, the growing connections between scanning probe microscopy, super-resolution light microscopy and electron microscopy should make the correlative sessions especially interesting.
We hope the Instrumentation theme will provide a lively and technically focused forum for discussing not only what microscopy can currently do, but what the next generation of instruments should be able to do.