NeuroFrance · 2027

Agoris analysis · updated November 2026

Key facts

• NeuroFrance is a scientific congress, not a commercial trade show: it is the international meeting of the Société des Neurosciences (French Neuroscience Society), held every two years, in English, built around plenary lectures, symposia and poster sessions. A paid exhibition of industry suppliers is attached to it, set in the middle of the posters and coffee breaks.
• Next edition: Tuesday 11 to Thursday 13 May 2027, at the Palais des Congrès de Bordeaux. The exhibition is scheduled from 9:30am to 5:30pm on Tuesday and Wednesday, and from 9:30am to 3:30pm on Thursday. The day before, Monday 10 May: a workshop on translational research and a public lecture.
• Organiser: the Société des Neurosciences, a non-profit association (loi 1901) based at the Université de Bordeaux. K.I.T. Group GmbH, a congress agency based in Berlin, runs the secretariat and sells the exhibition. Official website: neurosciences.asso.fr/SN27.
• Results of the last edition, in Montpellier in May 2025: 980 participants from 14 countries and 29 exhibitors. For 2027, the exhibitor prospectus announces 1,200 delegates: that is a forecast, not a result.
• The audience is that of research laboratories. The exhibition therefore suits suppliers of instruments, reagents and services for neuroscience research, and much less other healthcare companies.
• Exhibiting costs €285 per m² excl. VAT until 15 January 2027, then €320, with a minimum of 9 m².

Who exhibits

Typical profile

The 2025 list reads like a very specialised directory. Instrument suppliers dominate: behavioural research (Noldus, Ugo Basile), electrophysiology (Scientifica, 3Brain), in vivo research (PHYMEP), laboratory equipment (Harvard Bioscience, World Precision Instruments, RWD Life Science), cameras and microscopy (Oxford Instruments Andor, SCOP-PRO).

Next come reagents and cell biology (Proteintech, MedChemExpress, STEMCELL Technologies, Innoprot), gene delivery (VectorBuilder) and spatial multi-omics (STOmics). Non-commercial players also hold stands: EBRAINS, the European digital infrastructure for brain research, the GIS Autisme et TND, and the research structures Bordeaux Neurocampus and NeuroMarseille. CASDEN (Banque Populaire) completes the floor plan.

Notable exhibitors

The 2027 exhibitors have not been published to date: the site only points to the exhibition and sponsorship page, with a preliminary floor plan and the booking portal. Nothing allows us to assume that the companies named below will return.

The 29 exhibitors of 2025 appear on the official list of the Montpellier edition: 10x Genomics, 3Brain, Aix Marseille Université (NeuroMarseille), BIOSEB, Bordeaux Neurocampus, Bruker / Inscopix, CASDEN (Banque Populaire), Delta Technologies / Imetronic, EBRAINS (French node), GIS Autisme et TND, Harvard Bioscience, Innoprot, Manitty, MedChemExpress, Metofico, Micro Mécanique, Noldus Information Technology, Oxford Instruments Andor, PHYMEP, Proteintech, Research Diets, RWD Life Science, Scientifica, SCOP-PRO, STEMCELL Technologies, STOmics Tech, Ugo Basile, VectorBuilder and World Precision Instruments.

The gold sponsors of 2025 were STOmics and VectorBuilder. The 2027 prospectus also illustrates its offer with a photo of STOmics presenting its business in the plenary hall.

Visitor quality

Participants are researchers, with a strong presence of young researchers according to the organiser. The Société des Neurosciences has more than 1,500 members, from the public and private sectors, from basic to clinical and applied research. Its fields cover neurodevelopment, synapses and glia, neurological and psychiatric diseases and experimental therapeutics, sensory and motor neuroscience, neuroendocrinology, cognitive and behavioural neuroscience, and computational neuroscience.

The organiser presents the event as the largest neuroscience meeting in France. The audience is therefore rare and homogeneous, but it is not a buyer audience: decision-making profiles, platform managers or laboratory directors are not quantified. No third-party audit of attendance is published; the figures come from the organiser's prospectuses.

Bordeaux adds a local pool: the 2027 prospectus describes Bordeaux Neurocampus, a research department of the Université de Bordeaux, as a community of more than 800 scientists.

Events & community

Conference programme

The detailed programme is not yet online: the dedicated page announced it for October 2026. The grid in the exhibitor prospectus already gives the structure: opening ceremony and Angélique Arvanitaki Conference on Tuesday morning, six plenary lectures, 25 symposia numbered in series of five, three special sessions a day, and the Alfred Fessard Lecture to close on Thursday. Symposia last two hours and speakers present in English.

Wednesday afternoon is reserved for Partner & guest sessions. The general assembly and awards ceremony take place on Tuesday afternoon. As a benchmark, the 2025 edition had 8 plenary lectures, 36 symposia, 9 special sessions, 427 posters and 622 abstracts submitted.

On Monday 10 May, the Workshop on translational research in neuroscience and a public lecture precede the opening. In 2025, this workshop was aimed at medical interns and young researchers, with free but compulsory registration; the 2027 terms have not been published.

Community & networks

The Société des Neurosciences is a member of FENS, IBRO and the Collège des Sociétés Savantes Académiques de France, and a founding member of the French Brain Council. Its yearly activities include Brain Awareness Week, and it publishes La Lettre des Neurosciences twice a year.

The 2027 local committee is chaired by Sophie Layé and Etienne Coutureau, and the scientific committee by Catherine Belzung, president of the Society.

On the institutional side, the 2025 edition was supported in particular by Inserm, the CNRS, the Université de Montpellier and the Occitanie Region. The 2027 supporters are not yet displayed.

On site: what you need to know

The congress takes place at the Palais des Congrès de Bordeaux, avenue Jean Gabriel Domergue, in the Bordeaux Lac business district, the very place where the 2017 edition was held. The venue advertises an auditorium of 1,277 seats, 10 committee rooms and 3,000 m² of modular space.

The exhibition sits at the heart of the event, with the posters, coffee breaks and paid cash bars: this is the traffic argument of the prospectus. Expect footfall to be concentrated around the breaks and poster sessions, with the rest of the day taken up by symposia.

The venue operator, Beam, indicates access by tram line C, Palais des Congrès stop: about 30 minutes from the railway station, 20 minutes from the city centre, 60 minutes from the airport. By car, allow 20 minutes from the station or the airport. Beam also mentions free car parks and 1,400 hotel rooms around the lake. The congress website encourages sustainable travel, via the TBM network and its bikes, and does not yet publish a hotel selection for 2027.

How much does it cost to exhibit

The Silver package is worth working out. Assuming the stand package really covers 9 m², it costs €920 to €1,235 more than the equipped stand, subject to VAT, and includes a full registration, charged at €820 to €870 to a non-member in 2025. For a company that would send a third colleague anyway, the real gap is therefore small.

Booking goes through the ESOS portal, whose site gives July 2026 as the opening for space and January 2027 for additional items. Contact given in the prospectus: partenariat-colloque-NF@kit-group.org.

Planning your visit

For exhibitors

• Book before 15 January 2027: the difference is €35 per m², and spaces go in order of booking.
• Schedule demonstrations for the break and poster slots: Thursday's exhibition closes at 3:30pm, two hours earlier than on the first two days.
• Check your target before committing: the value of this exhibition lies in the specialisation of its audience. A brand looking for all laboratories, beyond neuroscience, will also look at Forum LABO, the laboratory industry trade show, on 23 to 25 March 2027 in Paris.
• Budget for staff: only 2 exhibitor badges are included in the space and in the equipped stand.
• Prepare materials in English, the language of the scientific presentations and of the website.

For decision-maker visitors

• This is not a free-entry visit: the congress runs on paid registration. Opening is announced for January 2027 and the 2027 rate card has not been published. In 2025, fees ranged from €200 to €870 depending on status and date, with no rate dedicated to the exhibition alone.
• Compare with membership of the Society before registering: at the 2025 early rate, an academic member paid €405, a non-member €820.
• Plan ahead for the abstract: submission is announced for January 2027. Young researchers can then apply for a short presentation in a symposium; abstracts submitted afterwards are directed towards posters.
• Visit the exhibition at break times if you need to compare equipment: several suppliers of the same technique were gathered there in 2025.

CSR policy & initiatives

The 2027 website has no section devoted to sustainability. It limits itself to encouraging lower-emission travel. The most specific commitments date from past editions: in 2023, the Society announced fewer printed materials, a strict supplier selection policy and reusable or compostable tableware, and invited exhibitors to reduce single-use promotional items. In 2025, it provided water fountains and strongly encouraged participants to bring their own bottle.

The service providers are better documented. K.I.T. Group presents itself as an ISO 20121:2024 certified agency and publishes an impact report, with 282.17 tonnes of CO2e measured in 2025 for its Berlin office and related activities. Beam, the operator of the Palais des Congrès, says it is ISO 20121 certified and reports 89% of waste recovered in 2024 and 100% green electricity. These certifications apply to the organisations: no certification specific to NeuroFrance is published.

On ethics, the Society is a signatory of the transparency charter on the use of animals for scientific purposes, a central subject for this community. A code of conduct applies to all participants, exhibitors included. The symposium rules also require a gender balance among speakers.

How the show has evolved

Trajectory analysis

The Society's meeting took the name NeuroFrance in 2017, in Bordeaux, with twice as many symposia. It has since changed city with every edition: Marseille, Strasbourg, Lyon, Montpellier, before this return to Bordeaux. The Society's call for applications for 2027 lists among its criteria the size of the local scientific community, access by train and hotel capacity. Strasbourg lost its in-person edition in 2021: the board of directors moved the meeting online because of the health situation. The biennial rhythm in odd-numbered years has not changed.

The official figures point in a clear direction for an exhibitor. The number of exhibitors falls from 49 in 2019 to 35 in 2023, then 29 in 2025, about 40% fewer over three in-person editions. The 2024 call for applications nonetheless sized the venue for 1,200 to 1,300 people and 30 to 40 exhibitors: 2025 falls below that range. Attendance held up better until 2023, before dropping to 980 in 2025. The prospectuses consulted do not explain it. The early-bird rate per m² has meanwhile kept rising, from €240 in 2023 to €270 in 2025 and €285 in 2027.

Forecasts should therefore be read with caution: the 2023 prospectus expected 1,300 delegates for 1,224 recorded, and the 2025 one expected 1,200 for 980. The figure of 1,200 announced for 2027 is far from guaranteed, even though Bordeaux offers favourable ground: the city of the Society's headquarters, a large local hub, and the best attendance in the table in 2017. The edition will tell whether this anchoring is enough to reverse the trend.

The venue and dates of the 2029 edition had not been announced at the time of writing.

All data that does not cite a source comes from the organiser's website.

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