Journées de Neurologie de Langue Française (JNLF) · 2027

Agoris analysis · updated November 2026

Key takeaways

• The Journées de Neurologie de Langue Française (JNLF) is the annual congress of French-speaking neurology: four days of courses, lectures, workshops and poster presentations, run by an association of neurologists founded in 1996, with an industry exhibition at the heart of the venue.
• Next edition: from Tuesday 20 to Friday 23 April 2027, at Lille Grand Palais, 1 boulevard des Cités Unies. The congress returns to Lille after 1999, 2009 and 2019.
• Access is strictly reserved for healthcare professionals and for partners working in connection with medicine.
• Organiser: the association Journées de Neurologie de Langue Française, chaired by Mathieu Zuber. The company Europa Organisation handles the setting up of the congress; the commercial management of the exhibition and partnerships is entrusted to Europa Group.
• Annual frequency, with a different host city each year. The format has been described as "augmented" since 2022: attendance on site or remotely, with most sessions filmed.
• Orders of magnitude displayed by the organiser: about 3,000 attendees, more than 50 learned societies presenting their sessions and an exhibition of nearly 4,500 m².

Who exhibits

Typical profile

The exhibition is where neurologists meet their suppliers. The 2026 list of industry partners shows four families: pharmaceutical companies, by far the most numerous; manufacturers of neurophysiology equipment; home healthcare providers; and medical publishers and journals.

The organiser puts forward five reasons for a partner to take part: being present at the largest French-speaking gathering of neurologists and paramedical staff, asserting leadership in one of the congress fields, meeting opinion leaders (academics, researchers, hospital practitioners), gaining visibility with prescribers and communicating about new products and services. The hybrid format extends the exhibition online: a partner's presence goes from 3.5 days on site to three months of streamed and replayed sessions.

Notable exhibitors

The partner list for the 2027 edition has not yet been published. The partner page for the 2026 edition, held in Marseille, lists 65 industry partners, including AbbVie, Amgen, argenx, AstraZeneca, Biogen, Lilly, Lundbeck, Medtronic, Merck, Novartis, Roche, Sanofi, Teva, UCB Pharma, Natus Micromed, Nihon Kohden, Compumedics, Bioserenity and Elsevier Masson. Six patient associations also appear, including France Parkinson and the Association Française des Céphalées.

Visitor quality

The audience is strictly professional: neurologists from the three modes of practice (private practice, general hospitals, university hospitals), residents, researchers, nurses, speech therapists, psychologists and neuropsychologists. This three-way balance is the founding principle of the association and is reflected in the equal representation on its board of directors.

The 2027 local committee, chaired by Dr Isabelle Girard Buttaz (Valenciennes), brings together neurologists from Lille, Amiens, Valenciennes, Tourcoing, Lens, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Abbeville, Compiègne and Étaples, as well as nurses from Lille: the edition mobilises neurologists from the Hauts-de-France region.

In 2026, registration distinguished between the statuses of physician (RPPS number compulsory), resident or paramedical, and industry member, the latter requiring an email address in the company's name. No independent attendance audit is published.

Events & community

Scientific programme

The 2027 programme is in preparation. More than 50 learned societies present their sessions every year; the list of learned societies and clubs associated with the Lille edition is already online, from the Ligue Française Contre l'Epilepsie to the Société Française d'Etudes des Migraines et Céphalées, by way of the Association Française d'Urologie.

For reference, the 2026 edition was built around the five Journées d'Enseignement Supérieur de Neurologie (JESN), sessions and workshops run by the learned societies, a nurses' day, a keynote lecture and the therapeutic updates on Friday in plenary. Industry partners have their own formats there, symposia and "Actualités" sessions, built into the official programme.

On posters, the organiser announces for 2027 nearly 300 works available to view online, fifteen viewing stations set up within the exhibition and 36 "Posters du Jour" presented during the breaks. The sessions of the learned societies, the JESN and the Friday morning updates will be recorded, with replays available until 23 October 2027. The workshops, reserved for on-site participants, are not rebroadcast.

Prizes and competitions

Six SFN/JNLF poster prizes will be awarded on Friday 23 April 2027 in plenary. The congress also hosts the Tournoi des Jeunes Talents (TJT) and the teaching competition Jeunes Neurologues, Jeunes Pédagogues (JNJP), both aimed at young neurologists. The association also itself distributes five to ten training grants in neurology and coordinates the jury of the Bourses de Formation en Neurologie intended for residents.

Community & networks

The congress is a rallying point for the learned societies and clubs of the discipline, and the association works in partnership with ANAINF, the association of neurology assistants and residents, to help young people attend. Outside the congress, the JNLF extend their activity with post-JESN webinars and a media library of past sessions.

The association is present on LinkedIn and X.

On site: what to know

The congress takes place at Lille Grand Palais, 1 boulevard des Cités Unies, 59777 Lille. The opening hours for the 2027 edition have not yet been published. For reference, in 2026 the registration desk was open from 7:30am to 7:00pm and the exhibition from 8:00am to 6:30pm from Tuesday to Thursday, with the last day ending at midday (exhibition closed at 12:30pm). The day before opening was devoted to new registrations and badge handover.

In 2026, accommodation went through Europa Booking & Services, the congress's official hotel provider, which handles room blocks, group bookings and rooming lists and presents its offers as compliant with the MedTech code and the so-called "anti-gifts" law. Lunch buffets were planned in the heart of the pharmaceutical exhibition from Tuesday to Thursday, subject to the health situation. The 2026 congress mobile app brought together the venue map, the programme, the e-posters, the exhibition and the partners.

How much does it cost to exhibit

The association publishes neither an exhibition price list nor a stand plan. The partnership pack and the media kit for the 2027 edition are available on simple request from Europa Group, the commercial contact for the exhibition, via the page Devenez partenaire des JNLF 2027. The 2027 congress registration fees were not available at the time of writing.

Beyond the exhibition, the 2026 partners had scientific visibility formats (symposia, "Actualités" sessions). The hosting of invited healthcare professionals falls under the rules governing benefits granted to healthcare professionals: in 2026, the congress hotel provider presented its offers as compliant with those rules.

Planning your visit

For exhibitors

• Request the 2027 partnership pack early: industry session formats are built into the scientific programme, which is put together in advance with the learned societies.
• Target your sessions: the organiser lists 38 fields covered by the congress, from pain to neurocognitive disorders, and each learned society draws its own community.
• Think hybrid: streaming and replays until 23 October 2027 extend the audience of a partner session well beyond the four days.
• Register your teams under the industry member status, which in 2026 required a professional email address in the company's name.
• Book group accommodation through the hotel provider designated by the congress (Europa Booking & Services in 2026), making sure invitations to healthcare professionals are compliant.

For professional visitors

• Choose between on-site and remote attendance: workshops are only accessible in person and were not included in the registration fee in 2026.
• Plan your route in the congress app, if it is renewed in 2027: the 2026 app made it possible to select sessions in advance and to put questions to speakers during sessions.
• Keep the breaks for the exhibition: the Posters du Jour are presented there and the e-poster viewing stations are set up there.
• Declare your attendance under the periodic certification scheme: the Fédération Française de Neurologie reminds visitors on the congress website that continuing professional development is compulsory.

CSR policy & initiatives

The association publishes a page dedicated to its CSR approach. Before the congress, the hybrid format allows hundreds of participants, notably French speakers outside Europe, to follow the event without travelling; preparation meetings mostly take place remotely, the train is favoured for speaker journeys of under five hours and speakers' taxis are not reimbursed.

On site, the organiser has reduced the carpeted area, replaced most banners with cardboard signage, rents furniture and IT equipment, sorts set-up waste and has dropped disposable cups and the traditional welcome kit. The paper programme of more than 100 pages has given way to a 12-page mini-programme pointing to the app. Some of the meals are vegetarian, quantities are adjusted to actual registrations and surpluses are redistributed to charities when the cold chain allows.

The venue has its own approach: Lille Grand Palais displays a management system certified ISO 20121 and ISO 9001, and its CSR policy is called "We Comeet". No ISO 20121 certification specific to the congress is displayed.

How the event has evolved

Trajectory analysis

The JNLF grew out of an idea launched in Toulouse in 1996 and held their first meeting in Strasbourg in 1997. The congress has since rotated between the major university cities: Lille hosted it in 1999, 2009 and 2019, Lyon in 2001, 2010 and 2023, Toulouse in 2006 and 2017, Bordeaux in 2008 and 2018, and Nantes for the second time in 2016. Clermont-Ferrand, in 2025, was presented as an entirely new destination.

The sharpest break was the pandemic. The Lyon congress of 2020 became the first e-JNLF, followed by a second e-congress in 2021, before a return to in-person at Strasbourg in 2022 in an "augmented" form retained since. The organiser sums up this track record in its own figures: 23 in-person congresses, 2 virtual congresses and 5 augmented congresses.

For an industry player, this legacy has changed the nature of presence: the stand remains the place to meet prescribers, but the value now extends through remote broadcasting of the sessions, to French-speaking countries and over time. The association's chairman writes, moreover, that its growing training offer could not be envisaged without the close relationships built with industry partners, whom he thanks for their loyalty during the Covid years.

The venue and dates of the 2028 edition had not been announced at the time of writing.

All data without an explicit source comes from the organiser's website.

Unless otherwise stated, all factual data in this listing comes from the organiser's official website (jnlf.fr).