We are reserving our rights to refunds that are only stated in the “Refund Policy” section. Any other claims for a refund will not be accepted.

Claims for a refund that comply with the refunds rules will be made through an email at treasurer@surgicon.ro, along with the full name of the participant and the bank account details in which the fee will be transferred. Refunds will be made by online bank transfer only, and no other forms of refunding will be allowed (cash, for example). We must mention that in the case of several specific countries (Kosovo, Eswatini, South Sudan etc.), a bank transfer from Romania to an account established in any of the aforementioned countries is not possible, therefore we can consider transfers through online banking platforms such as Revolut.

We will accept refund requests that are made online before the congress. No refund requests can be received during the congress days, except for a cancellation of a specific event due to the organisers’ liability.

After the refund is completed, the participant will lose the possibility to participate at SURGICON 2023 and will not be able to attend any of its events.

Refund conditions

1. If a participant registers as a Passive participant and decides to submit an abstract before the abstract submission deadline, he/she can upgrade his/her account to an Active account and will be entitled to a refund of the difference between a passive fee and the presenting author, only in the situation in which his/her abstract is accepted for the Scientific Competition. If his/her abstract is not accepted, he/she can keep the Passive pack.

2. If a participant registers as an Active participant, submits an abstract within the deadline, but is not accepted as a Presenting Author, he/she can either receive a full refund by contacting treasurer@surgicon.ro by the 10th of October, or become a Passive participant by paying the difference between  the originally presenting Author fee and the Late passive fee within 48 hours after the announcement of his/her change of packs. No refunds will be allowed if the participant who submitted an abstract that did not get accepted in the Scientific Competition did not request a refund and failed to pay the additional fee for the Passive participation before the announced deadlines.

3. If a presenting author in the Oral Presentation section can no longer deliver his/her presentation after its acceptance, he/she can designate one of the co-authors to substitute him as a presenting author. The fee differences between the presenting author and the co-author (who must also be registered as a Passive participant) will be the responsibility of the two involved participants. With regard to the changes in registration fees in this case, there are 2 main possibilities:

• There are the following options:
  • if the original presenting author still wants to attend the congress as a Passive participant (thus withdrawing only from the Scientific Competition), he/she has to announce the organisers by the 10th of October and he/she must downgrade to Passive Participant Pack, paying the fee difference between the original presenting author and the Late Passive Participant fee in maximum 48 hours after informing the organisers. No refund will be entitled if the participant fails to pay the fee in the specified interval.
  • If he/she cannot attend the congress at all and informs the organisers by the 10th of October 2023, he/she will be entitled to a refund minus a handling fee of 20 euros in the Early Bird period, 25 euros in the Regular period, and 30 euros in the Late period of registrations. No refund will be entitled after the 10th of October 2023.

4. If a presenting author in the Poster section can no longer deliver his/her presentation after its acceptance, he/she can designate one of the co-authors to substitute him as a presenting author. The fee differences between the presenting author and the co-author (who must also be registered as a Passive participant) will be a responsibility of the two involved participants. With regard to the changes in registration fees in this case, there are 2 main possibilities:

• if the original presenting author still wants to attend the congress as a Passive participant (thus withdrawing only from the Scientific Competition), he/she has to announce the organisers by the 10th of October and he/she must downgrade to the Passive Participant Pack, paying the fee difference between the original presenting author and the Late Passive Participant fee in maximum 48 hours after informing the organisers. No refund will be entitled if the participant fails to pay the fee in the specified interval;
• If the participant cannot attend the congress at all and informs the organisers by the 10th of October 2023, he/she will be entitled to a refund minus a handling fee of 20 euros in the Early Bird period, 25 euros in the Regular period, and 30 euros in the Late period of registrations. No refund will be entitled after the 10th of October 2023.

5. If a presenting author in the Debate section can no longer deliver his/her presentation after its acceptance, the participants are required to announce as soon as possible if they can not attend the event.

 There are 2 main possibilities:

• If only one of the members of the team can not attend, the other one can present both arguments or they can find a replacement but only if the respective is already registered as a passive participant and meets the eligibility criteria for active participation. The original presenting author has the responsibility to manage the fee difference between the original presenting author and the designated teammate. Additionally, the participant that cannot attend must downgrade his/her pack to a Passive Participant Pack, paying the difference fee between the Active Participant and the Late Passive Participant fee. If he/she cannot attend the congress at all, he/she must announce the organisers by the 10th of October 2023 and he/she will be entitled to a refund minus a handling fee of 20 euros in the Early Bird period, 25 euros in the Regular period, and 30 euros in the Late period of registrations. No refund will be entitled after the 10th of October 2023.
• If none of the members can attend the event, they must inform the organisers by the 10th of October 2023 and they will be entitled to a refund minus a handling fee of 20 euros in the Early Bird period, 25 euros in the Regular period, and 30 euros in the Late period of registrations. No refund will be entitled after the 10th of October 2023.

6. If a participant cannot attend SURGICON 2023 due to family or medical reasons overlapping the event, he/she can be entitled to a refund only if a request is made before the 10th of October. In this case, a handling fee of 20 euros in the Early Bird period, 25 euros in the Regular period and 30 euros in the Late period of registrations will be deducted from the registration fee.

7. All the events and activities related to SURGICON 2023 will be organised according to in-place laws and regulations at the time of the congress. In case of a change in laws and regulations that may affect participation, all registered participants will be notified via email and those unable to participate in the respective conditions may ask for a refund in the first 48 hours after receiving the email by sending an email to treasurer@surgicon.ro

8. If a participant is confronting a positive test for a communicable disease a week before SURGICON 2023, he/she is entitled to receive a voucher for the amount paid which can be used for the next edition of SURGICON by sending an email at registrations@surgicon.ro;

9. If a participant books an event that:

• cancels due to a situation that implies the SURGICON 2023 organisers;
• has a change in location or time and overlaps another booked SURGICON event (due to the aforementioned changes)

If the participant is no longer able to attend the respective workshop, organisers will contact the participant and give him/her the possibility of attending another workshop to not overlap with the previously booked events of each participant. If the organisers cannot find a suitable alternative of workshops, the participant will be entitled to a partial refund (20 euros). If the participant booked two events that overlapped (the programme is available before the booking procedure),  the organising team will help with the changing process of the events, but we do not take the responsibility to give a refund in this case.

10. Should the visa application be refused, we will grant you a refund, minus a handling fee of 20 euros in the Early Bird period, 25 euros in the Regular period and 30 euros in the Late period of registrations.

11. In case the event cannot be organised or is subject to change as a whole due to reasons which are outside of the sphere of responsibility of the RSSS (e.g. natural catastrophe, state of emergency or alert, war, nuclear, chemical or biological war, venue closing without the possibility to move to another venue, interdictions by national/local authorities or force majeure etc.), students who are in their final year of study would be entitled to a full refund minus a handling fee of 5 euros (for full details, see XIII. Event Cancellation and Force Majeure).

12. If the participant does not agree with the changes made to the Terms & Conditions, he/she can send a request in no more than 48 hours (from the time he/she received the email about the changes that were made) at registrations@surgicon.ro, demanding the termination of his/her registration at the congress. In this case the participant will be entitled to a refund minus a handling fee of 20 euros in the Early Bird period, 25 euros in the Regular period and 30 euros in the Late period of registrations, only if he/she can objectively prove that the change negatively impacts his/her participation at the congress.

13. NO refunds will be allowed for:

• any claims arising from delayed confirmation of payment and activation of personal account due to reasons that involve a third party (downtime of payment provider, downtime of the official website, cyber attacks etc.);
• any server issues that arise during the booking procedure;
• failing to pay the price difference between the Active and Passive pack within the official deadlines stated on the website, should the participant fail to submit an abstract before the abstract submission deadline;
• submitting the same/a similar abstract by different presenting authors or there is a reasonable suspicion of such a practice;
• a member of the SURGICON 2023 Board and the Department Coordinators will not be accepted as active parts in the Scientific Competition that submit an abstract as a presenting author nor will be quoted as a co-author or a scientific coordinator for a submitted abstract;
• any malfunctioning of the presentation as a result of the failure to check the presentation with a scientific volunteer before the oral presentation session;
• participants who pay the registration fee after the official deadlines/ pay the Early/Regular fee during the Regular/Late period, respectively;
• failure of downloading the digital copy of CA within the first 4 weeks after the congress;
• failure of retrieving the hardcopy of the certificate of attendance (that was priorly paid for); for national and international participants who cannot perform their check-out, the copies will be sent to the addresses provided by the participants upon registration (SURGICON is not responsible for the payment of the shipping fee, that will be paid by the participant upon arrival). SURGICON 2023 cannot guarantee the timely delivery of the hardcopy and will not offer refunds in case of mishandling the delivery by third-parties (postal providers). Please check VIII. Certificate of Attendance for more information;
• participants who pay for the hard copy of the certificate of attendance and do not wish to receive it anymore;
• failure of booking Workshops in the official period of time dedicated to booking procedures for any reasons outside the sphere of responsibility of the organisers;
• failure of personal scheduling of workshops in a manner in which they do not overlap with other activities/workshops and prevents them from meeting the criteria for obtaining a certificate of attendance;
• not receiving a Certificate of Attendance due to mandatory criteria not being met (see VII. Certificate of Attendance);
• participants who apply for a visa under reasonable surmise (by the authorities and the organising team) of attempting to receive an entry visa in the country with other purposes than strictly participating in the event;
• any request of a visa invitation letter after the official deadline;
• any charges arising from visa application with/without refusal by the Romanian authorities (travel, accommodation, insurance, medical costs etc.);
• failure of providing full information on the identity of a participant and other details needed in order to issue a visa invitation letter;
• any fraud, suspicion of fraud by stolen bank credentials, stolen credit or debit cards, stolen identity, fake bank accounts or any other unlawful attempt;
• any travel and accommodation expenses of participants with the purpose of attending the event;
• any changes that occur in the scientific programme (conferences/keynotes, scientific competition), opening and closing ceremonies, social events with respect to content, venues or period of time;
• any cancellations in scientific or social events or changes of the congress as a whole that arise due to exceptional situations (see XIII. Event Cancellation and Force Majeure);
• participants whose abstract were not accepted in the Scientific Competition and fail to send an email requesting the refund by the 10th October;
• any differences in content or description of any presentations within workshops and conferences in official informative channels vs. at the time of the event, with the condition of maintaining the theme of the scientific event.
• participants who are excluded from the event due to major breeches of the Terms & Conditions, as well as any damage to the organisers, partners & sponsors, other participants, speakers and trainers/teachers, website;
• for the money value of the prizes won in a contest or promotion organised by SURGICON;
• any unpleasant situation that may occur to participants by third parties responsibility (catering services, bank services, official partners & sponsors etc.);
• any unpleasant situation, physical or moral, that may occur due to the speakers’ and/or trainers’ behaviour or actions (including, but not limited to poor use of English);
• any other fees in connection with the congress (included, but not restricted to social events, parties, expositions, tours, services offered by third parties etc.).
• participants who pay for extra activities of the Congress and do not want to attend (such as SURGICON 2023 ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION)
• Premium participants with SURGICON 2023 ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION included that do not want to attend the event;