With the beginning of the new decade, 2021 will be a crucial year to look into "IBD precise". With its steadily increasing number of participants, the ECCO Congress has become the leading world congress for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases and we look forward to welcoming you to a highly diverse programme with a major focus on precision medicine for IBD. Among the highlights of the 2021 Scientific Programme are topics like direct comparison and combination of drugs. In 2021, we should be able to determine the role of artificial intelligence in IBD, to choose the safest therapeutic option in an era of multiple medications and to tailor therapeutic strategies to patients' profile such as age. Top specialists will also provide new insights on the real burden of IBD, the optimal managment of disease complications, the best way to monitor our patients and the ultimate therapeutic goals. There will be a Basic Science Session dedicated to "The microbiome as game changer in IBD?" that will discuss implementation of recent findings into practice. Having multiple tandem talks, and several sessions that involve all the different ECCO Committees with live discussions during the presentation of clinical cases will guarantee direct interaction with the audience. As every year, alongside the Scientific Programme, we have planned various educational activities before the start of the Congress, such as the 12th N-ECCO School and also the first edition of the brand new 1st Postgraduate Course, the 6th D-ECCO Workshop directed at clinical trialists, and the 15th N-ECCO Network Meeting as well as S-ECCO and H-ECCO Masterclasses.