The study of eye movements is of great scientific importance for a number of reasons. Experimental psychologists and neuroscientists, for example, measure eye movements to better understand cognitive processes such as visual attention and their implementation in the brain. Oculography is also applied in clinical settings, such as psychiatry and neurology, to characterise the neuropathology of various clinical conditions. Finally, eye-tracking has become an increasingly popular and widely used method of registering perceptual and attentional processing as well as behavioural preferences in applied settings such as ergonomics, (neuro-)marketing, traffic psychology and usability. Overall, the study of oculomotor control and the application of its methods is an exciting and scientifically highly productive interdisciplinary adventure. 

The European Summer School on Eye Movements (ESSEM) was first held in 2013 at the University of Bonn (organisers: Ulrich Ettinger, Christoph Klein; financial support by VolkswagenStiftung). The second instalment of ESSEM was in Freiburg in 2014 (organisers: Christoph Klein, Ulrich Ettinger; financial support by Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds), and in 2016 ESSEM took place in Athens, Greece (organisers: Nikolaos Smyrnis, Ulrich Ettinger, Christoph Klein). ESSEM 2018 was held again at the University of Bonn (organisers: Ulrich Ettinger, Christoph Klein). ESSEM 2020 took place online, hosted from the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Freiburg, Germany (organisers: Christoph Klein, Ulrich Ettinger). In September 2022, ESSEM returned to the University of Bonn (organisers: Ulrich Ettinger, Christoph Klein).

"Thank you very much again for a great first ESSEM school, and I look forward to future instances!"

"I would like to thank you again for organizing this magnificent summer school. I enjoyed my stay enormously, I leartned a lot and I had the unique opportunity to meet with colleauges from all over the world and get to know them better. The students were really excellent and the hospitality was just great. I think everybody recognized just how much work you and your team have put into organizing this event and we are all very greatful. I think this will become a major European event in cognitive neuroscience in the years to come if our future commitment matches the standards you already set.

Thanks again for your invitation"

"Thanks again for inviting me and for the wonderful time."

"Thank you for the very well organized summer school. It was a pleasure to be there."

"THanks to you both for setting the summer school up and inviting me.

i really enjoyed spending some time with you both, and listening to the talks. […]

i think these kinds of meetings are really a good way to develop frienships with wider nets of people, and then to be able to share ideas and papers and such, and develop some collaboratoins that move us forward faster than we can on our own. i look forward to that with you both."

"Thank you so much again for inviting me to participate in ESSEM, and for being such wonderful hosts!!! I had the greatest time, and would love to do it again -- Congratulations on an extremely successful and well organized program!"

"I really enjoyed it and well done for organising such an instructive workshop."

"I had such an awesome time! Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to take part in this interesting, inspiring and intellectually stimulating summer school program! Moreover, it was great to meet so many nice people!"

"Just that I would like to send my congratulations to the organisers and the supporting team for running such a fantastic school. The conference dinner, including the talk from Angelika Böck, and the Russian band, were also an absolutely fabulous way of finishing things off!"

"The quality of the lectures was very high, I have really appreciated all of them."

"Overall, incredibly well structured and thought out. Very coherent development over the week."

"Thank you very much for organizing the event! It was absolutely great."

"Thank you for organising this very nice summer school! Everything was well organized and the lectures were very interesting. I had a very good time discussing with people from differnet EM labs about techniques"

"All in all, I am thankful for organizing this wonderful week. As a PhD studnet who recently started to work on eye-tracking topic, it was a great opportunity to listen to advance presentations and also have a chance to talk with experts in this domain."

"it was a great week, a great program, and great people"

"Thank you very much for the opportunity to attend to this summer school, I've been in other eye trackings events but this one was definitely for learning and sharing knowledge about research. Great lectures,a lot of learnings, and many ideas to improve our interpretation of eye movement data. It was great to be surrounded by people who finds eye movements as interestingg as I do (it is not often for me). Thanks a lot!!"