MICCAI 2026

29th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention — Strasbourg Convention Center, Strasbourg, France · September 27 – October 1, 2026. ~3,000 attendees. Hosted by the MICCAI Society; peer-reviewed proceedings published in Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) ~1 week before the meeting.

Status: Scaffold — meeting is ~20 weeks out as of May 11, 2026. Early acceptance notifications went out May 7; rebuttal window runs May 8–14; final decisions land June 12. Proceedings post no earlier than September 21. This vault stands up the per-tool template and program-notes prep page now so the live-coverage scaffold is ready when (a) the early-accept list is public, (b) the workshop/challenge slate is finalized (acceptance March 13, 2026, so already known but not yet centrally listed on the 2026 site), and (c) the proceedings PDFs drop in late September.

One factual note up front: MICCAI 2026 was originally awarded to Abu Dhabi, UAE. The MICCAI Board relocated the meeting to Strasbourg due to regional uncertainty; Abu Dhabi is now slated for 2029. References to "MICCAI 2026 Abu Dhabi" in older calls / press materials are stale.

Why this is in the vault

MICCAI is the methods-and-models counterpart to RSNA 2026 in the medical-imaging-AI axis, and the radiology-side methods feeder to AACR 2026 in the foundation-model axis. The convergence points:

• Pathology foundation models. The AACR vault already carries standalone dossiers for CHIEF, Prov-GigaPath, and UNI. Their methodology papers (and the next-cycle updates — UNI2, new tile encoders, slide-level aggregation methods) are MICCAI / MICCAI-workshop work. When CHIEF cites "self-supervised pretraining at tile-level," that loss / sampling / curation work lives in MICCAI proceedings or COMPAY / MILEX workshop papers, not in Nature Medicine.
• Radiology AI methods. Segmentation (nnU-Net-class), registration (deformable, learning-based), generative medical imaging (diffusion priors for MRI/CT reconstruction, synthetic data for fairness), and multimodal vision-language models (report generation, radiology-text alignment) are MICCAI-native. These feed the imaging-AI tool entries in the RSNA vault.
• Oncology-specific challenges. MICCAI hosts the long-running cancer-imaging challenges that anchor public benchmarks: BraTS (brain tumor), HECKTOR (head-and-neck PET/CT), KiTS (kidney tumor), AutoPET (whole-body lesion segmentation), PANORAMA (pancreas), plus rotating skin / mammography / prostate efforts. Any oncology imaging AI claim at AACR or RSNA likely benchmarks against one of these.
• Computer-assisted intervention. The "CAI" half of MICCAI carries surgical AI (laparoscopic navigation, surgical phase recognition, intra-op imaging) — relevant to rad-onc dose planning, IGRT (image-guided radiotherapy), and emerging surgical-oncology AI.
• Peer-reviewed, proceedings-backed. Unlike RSNA (clinical-trial / vendor-heavy, journal-paired but not proceedings-driven), MICCAI has a two-round peer review (rebuttal window built into the timeline) and full LNCS proceedings. Tool entries here can cite a Springer DOI alongside the talk metadata — same shape as ISMB / RECOMB, not RSNA.

What we have / will have to work with

Source	Coverage	Notes
MICCAI 2026 home	venue, dates, key dates, calls	conferences.miccai.org/2026
Important Dates	full timeline through final decisions	conferences.miccai.org/2026/en/IMPORTANT-DATES.html — abstract Feb 12, papers Feb 26, early accept May 7, rebuttal May 8–14, final decision Jun 12
Call for Papers	topic areas, formatting	conferences.miccai.org/2026/en/CALL-FOR-PAPERS.html
Call for Workshops	workshop slate, dates Sep 27 + Oct 1	conferences.miccai.org/2026/en/CALL-FOR-WORKSHOPS.html — LOI Dec 15 2025, full proposal Jan 15 2026, accept Mar 13 2026
Call for Challenges	challenge slate, ESR-collaboration oncology track	conferences.miccai.org/2026/en/CALL-FOR-CHALLENGES.html — three ESR-flagged oncology topics (colorectal liver mets CT, PET oncology assessment, RECIST on thorax-abdomen CT); top 3 also present at ECR 2027
Springer LNCS proceedings	peer-reviewed full papers + DOIs	Springer publishes multi-volume LNCS set ~Sep 21–26; each paper has a DOI before the talk. Open-access option (gold OA) for authors who pay APC; otherwise paywalled but author-uploaded preprints typical on arXiv.
MICCAI Society challenges registry	historical + 2026-registered challenges	miccai.org/index.php/special-interest-groups/challenges/miccai-registered-challenges/
arXiv mirrors	preprints flagged "to appear in MICCAI 2026"	the dominant preprint channel for MICCAI work; expect a wave of postings May–Aug 2026 as accept notifications go out
CliniCAI (Clinical Day)	clinical-translation track	listed on 2026 program nav; clinician-facing companion to the main proceedings
Open Data initiative	open-data submissions tied to the conference	dedicated call on the 2026 site
Virtual Startup Village	pitch competition; deadline Jun 1, 2026	application window open as of May 2026
Social / press	#MICCAI2026 on Bluesky, X, Mastodon	useful for real-time talk reactions; not a primary source

Program shape

MICCAI 2026 runs Sunday Sep 27 through Thursday Oct 1, five days at the Strasbourg Convention Center. The canonical MICCAI structure (carried over from the 2024 Marrakesh / 2025 Daejeon cycles):

• Sunday Sep 27 — Satellite Events day 1: tutorials (half- and full-day), workshops (start), challenges (kickoff / on-site phase). No main proceedings sessions.
• Monday Sep 28 – Wednesday Sep 30 — Main conference. Each day opens with a keynote (typically 3 keynotes across the three main days), followed by 3–4 parallel oral sessions and large poster sessions. Awards (Best Paper, Young Scientist, MICCAI Society Fellow) announced at the closing plenary Wednesday.
• Thursday Oct 1 — Satellite Events day 2: remaining workshops, tutorials, challenge result sessions. CliniCAI (Clinical Day) typically lands on one of the satellite days.
• Workshops — ~35–60 typically, split across the two satellite days. Cancer-relevant recurring ones (subject to 2026 acceptance, finalized Mar 13, 2026):
• BrainLes / BraTS — brain tumor segmentation, the largest and longest-running MICCAI challenge-plus-workshop
• COMPAY — Computational Pathology (pathology-FM home; pairs with AACR pathology-FM dossiers)
• MILEX / MILLanD — medical image labels, low-supervision learning
• DGM4MICCAI — Deep Generative Models for MICCAI (diffusion, GANs for medical imaging)
• CaPTion — Cancer Prevention through Image-based Technologies (when running)
• MMMI / Multi-Modal — multimodal learning across modalities
• PIPPI — perinatal, preterm, paediatric imaging (sometimes carries paediatric oncology)
• Challenges — historically ~25–40 registered per year. Oncology-relevant recurring slate (subject to 2026 registration):
• BraTS — brain tumor (Adult Glioma, Meningioma, Pediatrics, Africa, MET, Inpainting sub-tasks)
• HECKTOR — head-and-neck PET/CT tumor + outcome
• KiTS — kidney tumor / surgical AI
• AutoPET — whole-body FDG PET/CT lesion segmentation
• PANORAMA — pancreatic cancer detection (PDAC)
• ISIC-style skin lesion challenges (sometimes co-located)
• 2026 ESR oncology track — three ESR-flagged proposals (colorectal liver mets CT, PET oncology, RECIST thorax-abdomen CT); winners co-present at ECR 2027
• Keynotes — 3 plenary speakers across Mon–Wed (slate not yet announced as of May 11, 2026)
• Posters — typically >1,500 across the main 3 days, two daily blocks
• Startup Village — applications close Jun 1, 2026

Organization

conferences/miccai-2026/
├── index.md             # this page
├── program-notes.md     # pre-meeting prep: dates, venue, workshop/challenge slate,
│                        # anticipated oncology-relevant work, cross-links to AACR/RSNA dossiers
├── themes.md            # cross-day synthesis (deferred until post-meeting)
├── digest/              # day-by-day recap (deferred until post-meeting)
│   ├── day-0-sunday.md      # tutorials + workshops day 1 + challenge kickoff
│   ├── day-1-monday.md      # keynote 1 + main proceedings sessions
│   ├── day-2-tuesday.md     # keynote 2 + main proceedings sessions
│   ├── day-3-wednesday.md   # keynote 3 + closing plenary + awards
│   └── day-4-thursday.md    # workshops day 2 + CliniCAI + challenge results
├── keynotes/            # one entry per plenary keynote (deferred until speakers announced)
├── topics/              # cross-cutting bins (deferred)
│   ├── pathology-fm/        # COMPAY + main-proceedings pathology FMs (CHIEF / GigaPath / UNI updates)
│   ├── segmentation/        # nnU-Net descendants, SAM-medical adapters
│   ├── generative-imaging/  # DGM4MICCAI + main-proceedings diffusion / synthesis
│   ├── radiotherapy-ai/     # dose planning, IGRT, auto-contouring
│   ├── multimodal-vlm/      # report generation, radiology-text, multimodal FMs
│   ├── surgical-ai/         # CAI side — phase recognition, intra-op imaging
│   └── oncology-challenges/ # BraTS / HECKTOR / KiTS / AutoPET / PANORAMA results
├── tools/               # PRIMARY artifact — one entry per model / method / package
│   └── index.md
└── sessions/            # full session index (post-meeting, after proceedings drop)
    └── index.md

The tools/ directory is the load-bearing artifact, same shape as ISMB 2026 and RECOMB 2026. MICCAI-specific additions to the per-tool template (see tools/index.md): a Proceedings row pointing to the Springer LNCS DOI when applicable (versus Bioinformatics DOI for ISMB), and a Track field (Main proceedings / Workshop / Challenge / CliniCAI / Tutorial) to keep the satellite-vs-main signal legible.

What's different from RSNA 2026

• Peer-reviewed proceedings, not vendor-driven. RSNA's AI Showcase is 100+ vendors with booths; MICCAI is academic-led, with full peer-reviewed LNCS proceedings. Tool entries here will be unusually complete pre-meeting (DOI + GitHub + benchmarks) — same depth as ISMB.
• Methods, not deployment. RSNA carries the prospective screening trial and the FDA-clearance press release; MICCAI carries the loss function, the architecture, the benchmark. The same pathology FM (e.g., UNI) gets a methods paper at MICCAI and a clinical-readout poster at RSNA / AACR.
• Challenges as first-class artifact. Unlike RSNA (one annual RSNA AI Challenge), MICCAI runs ~25–40 challenges per year. Many oncology AI benchmarks (BraTS, HECKTOR, KiTS, AutoPET, PANORAMA) live here and have been running 5–15+ years.
• Surgical AI / CAI half. RSNA is diagnostic imaging only. MICCAI's "CAI" track covers surgical phase recognition, laparoscopic navigation, intra-op imaging — orthogonal axis not present at RSNA.
• Scale. RSNA ~50,000 attendees (mostly clinicians); MICCAI ~3,000 (mostly engineers / methodologists / clinicians-in-method-track). MICCAI is closer in scale to ISMB / NeurIPS than to RSNA.

Cross-vault links

• AACR 2026 — pathology-FM and translational-cancer side. Direct dossier links from MICCAI tool pages back to:
• CHIEF — pathology FM, Mahmood Lab
• Prov-GigaPath — pathology FM, Microsoft / Providence
• UNI — pathology FM, Mahmood Lab
• RSNA 2026 — clinical-deployment / vendor side of medical-imaging AI. Many MICCAI 2026 method papers will resurface at RSNA Nov 29–Dec 3 as clinical-deployment readouts.
• ISMB 2026 — methodologically nearest sibling (peer-reviewed proceedings, methods-heavy, similar scale). Shape of the per-tool template is shared.
• NeurIPS 2026 — general ML / FM side; cross-pollinates with MICCAI on medical-image FMs and diffusion methods.
• Conferences timeline — MICCAI's position in the year (AACR Apr → ASCO May/Jun → RECOMB May → ISMB Jul → ESMO Oct (overlaps) → MICCAI late Sep / early Oct → RSNA late Nov / early Dec).

Sources

• MICCAI 2026 home (conferences.miccai.org/2026)
• MICCAI 2026 Important Dates
• MICCAI 2026 Call for Papers
• MICCAI 2026 Call for Workshops
• MICCAI 2026 Call for Challenges
• MICCAI Society home
• MICCAI Registered Challenges
• Springer LNCS (proceedings publisher)
• MICCAI 2025 Daejeon (prior year, for shape reference)

Next step

• Now (May 2026, T-20 weeks): stand up template + program-notes (this commit). Track the early-accept list (notifications May 7) and the workshop/challenge slate (already accepted Mar 13; populated as workshop sites go live through summer).
• Summer 2026 (T-8 to T-16 weeks): final paper decisions Jun 12 — full accepted-paper list public mid-June via OpenReview / arXiv mirrors. Pre-build stub pages for high-signal entries: any paper updating CHIEF / GigaPath / UNI / RadFM / Merlin-class FMs; any BraTS / HECKTOR / KiTS / AutoPET / PANORAMA challenge writeup; any DGM4MICCAI / COMPAY workshop standout.
• Pre-meeting (T-1 to T-4 weeks): Springer LNCS proceedings drop ~Sep 21–26. Pull DOIs into stub pages; populate the tools/ index table.
• Live meeting (Sep 27 – Oct 1): real-time capture of slide deposits, GitHub repos, demo links from social. CliniCAI clinical-translation talks pair to RSNA preview.
• Post-meeting (Oct 2026): bulk tool-page extraction. Estimated ~25–50 tool entries — narrower than ISMB (proceedings filter is stricter) but deeper per-entry (full Springer DOI + arXiv + benchmark + code from the start). Cross-check against AACR 2026 pathology-FM mentions and stage radiology-side cross-links for RSNA 2026 (Nov 29).