There were two INFORMAS symposia based on different country experiences in implementing INFORMAS: Symposium 1 is on the Food EPI (Public Sector) and Symposium 2 is on food labelling and marketing. A number of key INFORMAS members attended this event. Click here for the ICN2017 website.

The 13th International Congress on Obesity (ICO) took place 1-4 May 2016, in Vancouver, Canada. At ICO, Boyd Swinburn and Stefanie Vandevijvere organised an informal INFORMAS meeting open to module leaders, country representatives and anyone interested in learning more about INFORMAS. Around 20 delegates attended this meeting which was a good opportunity for networking amongst INFORMAS members.

The 2015 INFORMAS meeting was held in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia on Monday 31 August 2015 (full day) and Tuesday 1 September 2015 (half day). The meeting was hosted at the QUT Executive Education Centre beautifully situated next to the Brisbane River and the Botanic Gardens. There was a great turnout of 24 attendees from a broad range of countries – New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, USA and Canada – some of which are currently running INFORMAS modules and others who are applying for grants to run modules. It was a very informative meeting involving updates from module leaders and country representatives, with some productive discussions on challenges and future directions.The meeting was held in conjunction with the 9th ICDAM conference (1-3 September) where two INFORMAS symposia were presented by various INFORMAS members on Day 2 on: Benchmarking Food Environments ‘Country Experiences’ and ‘Key Challenges and Future Directions’. INFORMAS has had a lot of exposure over the past four months with two international symposia being presented in two countries (Scotland, Australia) with another symposium coming up in Los Angeles for Obesity Week in November. There has also been great interest at these events from academics and policy makers in joining the INFORMAS network.