Looking ahead to ISPOR Europe 2026: HEOR heads to Vienna
With just two months to go until ISPOR Europe 2026, preparations are gathering pace for one of the largest annual meetings of the global health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) community. The program is taking shape and almost 3000 poster presentations have now been confirmed, giving delegates their first real sense of what to expect in Vienna this November.
In November, the global health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) community will head to Vienna for ISPOR Europe 2026, the annual European meeting of ISPOR—The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research.
Taking place November 8–11, 2026, at the Austria Center Vienna, the meeting will bring thousands of researchers, policymakers, payers, industry representatives, patient organizations and other stakeholders to the Austrian capital for four days of research, debate and networking.
As a media partner for ISPOR Europe 2026, The Evidence Base will be following the meeting in the run-up to Vienna, throughout the conference and beyond. Here, we take an early look at what delegates can expect from this year’s meeting, from its setting in Vienna and the breadth of the scientific program to the different ways to engage with the research.
Shaping the future of access in Vienna
The past few years have seen HEOR evolve significantly, shaped not only by advances in methods and evidence generation but increasingly by global policy and geopolitical shifts. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that ISPOR Europe 2026 will take place under the theme “Shaping the Future of Access Through Science and Policy.”
Leading the program are Co-Chairs Malina Müller (WifOR Institute), Sandra Nestler-Parr (BioCryst Pharmaceuticals) and Rasmus Prior Gjesing (WHO Europe), bringing perspectives from health economics, industry, patient access and international health policy.
With more than 140 sessions and almost 3000 posters, the program reflects the breadth of HEOR today. Across plenaries, issue panels, workshops, spotlight sessions, forums, podium presentations and shorter interactive formats, delegates will have opportunities to explore both the scientific developments changing how evidence is generated and the policy questions determining how that evidence is used.
From rethinking value to optimizing healthcare systems
The three plenary sessions provide an overarching narrative for the conference, beginning with a deceptively simple question: are we measuring what really matters?
The opening plenary, “The Science of What Matters: Rethinking Value in Healthcare,” will challenge delegates to consider whether established approaches to measuring value fully capture what matters in healthcare decision-making. Drawing on behavioral science, wellbeing research and health economics, the discussion will extend beyond widely used measures to consider wellbeing, happiness, daily functioning, societal contributions and lived experience.
The conversation then moves from how value is measured to where it is created. “We Optimize Treatments—But How Do We Optimize the System?” will consider whether HEOR's sophisticated approaches to assessing individual health technologies could be applied more broadly to existing practices, care pathways and models of healthcare delivery. The discussion will ask what it would mean for HEOR to move beyond predominantly product-focused assessment toward system-level value creation.
The final plenary looks ahead to the evidence required to support that evolution. If healthcare systems are asking different questions about value, what evidence will they need to answer them, and how must HEOR evolve to deliver it?
A diverse program with one common focus
Beyond the plenaries, ISPOR Europe 2026 offers a substantial and varied program of Issue Panels, Workshops, Spotlight Sessions, Forums and Podium Presentations alongside almost 3000 posters. While the formats and topics vary widely, many of the conversations return to a common question: how can advances in science, evidence and policy ultimately support better access to healthcare?
Europe’s rapidly changing policy environment will provide an important backdrop. Sessions will consider the implementation of the EU HTA Regulation alongside pharmaceutical legislation reform, the Critical Medicines Act and Biotech Act, as well as the potential implications of Most-Favored-Nation pricing for medicines pricing and access. Other discussions get closer to the evidence itself, asking what it takes to make RWE decision-grade for HTA, how trial endpoints can translate into Joint Clinical Assessment decision-making, and how more patient-centered evidence can be generated.
The Spotlight Sessions bring some of the field’s emerging questions to the fore. “Humans at the Helm: Navigating Increasing AI Autonomy in HEOR and HTA” tackles the growing role of AI and human oversight, while “Bridging China and Europe: When Is China-Generated Evidence Fit for European HTA?” turns to the transferability of evidence across settings. A third explores the incorporation of environmental impact into healthcare value assessment.
Different formats offer different ways to engage with these questions. Podium sessions showcase selected research abstracts, forums provide space for ISPOR Member Groups to explore scientific and policy issues, while 30-minute Fast Facts sessions combine focused learning with smaller-group discussion.
Get more from ISPOR Europe 2026 with The Evidence Base
With more than 140 sessions and almost 3000 posters to choose from, deciding where to focus your time at ISPOR Europe can be a challenge. In the weeks leading up to Vienna, The Evidence Base will help you navigate the program, with dedicated previews exploring some of the key topics and questions likely to generate discussion at this year’s meeting.
During and after the conference, we will also bring you interviews, research highlights and insights from Vienna, helping you catch up on conversations you may have missed and continue them beyond the meeting.
Presenting research at ISPOR Europe 2026? Our Peek Behind the Poster series gives researchers an opportunity to take readers beyond the abstract, explaining the motivation for their work, highlighting key findings and discussing what they could mean for the wider HEOR community.
Our Deep Dives go further into key topics and sessions, bringing together the evidence, expert perspectives and wider context to continue important conversations beyond the conference itself.
Follow The Evidence Base on LinkedIn and register for free to keep up with our ISPOR Europe 2026 coverage before, during and after the meeting.
To explore the opportunities to raise awareness of your presence at ISPOR Europe 2026, please contact Dionne Basterfield.