Interventional radiology (IR) continues to grow and evolve as a distinct area of medical practice with some key differences from a purely diagnostic practice, not least in the areas of clinical Knowledge, procedural skills and practice. Patients and healthcare authorities quite rightly expect and deserve, well-trained professional IR doctors who are competent, safe and who will take care of patients before, during and after IR procedure. In pursuit of this aim some countries have been successful in obtaining either full IR specialty status or subspecialty status within Radiology.

The CIRSE board recognised in 2006–2007 the need to standardise IR training and assessment across Europe to ensure that patients are treated safely and effectively by well-trained IR clinicians. The aim being that, no matter where doctors are trained, they should achieve the same core competencies. To further this aim CIRSE published the first European IR curriculum in 2013, which set out the key requirements to practice IR safely. This new IR curriculum, set out the objectives, learning methods, outcomes, supervision and assessment of IR training, forming the basis of the syllabus used to blueprint to the newly created EBIR (European Board of Interventional Radiology) examination, which is a high level professional examination and now a global examination of IR competence [1]. It was clear from the outset that not all Interventional Radiologists would be familiar with every procedure listed in the syllabus and that some would have choose to sub-specialise in various sub-disciplines of IR. However, the specific sections of the syllabus were designed to form the fundamental building blocks for appropriate training in all these specialist areas of IR with the EBIR used for summative assessment. To ensure the curriculum was continuously evolving and relevant to new and changing practices, it was agreed that the curriculum would be reviewed every 3–5 years and, consequently, the updated second edition was published in 2017 [2]. This second edition focussed on clarifying key roles in emergency care, introducing new techniques as well as removing older techniques which had been abandoned, as well as introducing a traffic light system to make clear which areas would be tested more frequently or less frequently in the EBIR examination. A major milestone in the success of the EBIR and the curriculum upon which it was based was the endorsement of the EBIR by the European union of medical specialists (UEMS) and the Council for European Specialists Medical Assessment (CESMA) in 2017 after a thorough auditing process. The second edition curriculum formed the cornerstone of the further changes and evolution of the EBIR examination from a face-to-face onsite, viva-based examination, to a purely online virtual examination in 2021 which now can be taken in multiple different languages including German, Spanish and shortly Italian. These changes have increased the pace of uptake of the examination with over 1000 EBIR holders now worldwide [3].

The third edition has been completed recently which builds on the success of the previous two editions with several important changes ensuring that IR education continues to adapt to the changing environment and work practices of IR’s and includes emphasis on greater clinical responsibility for patients, lists training requirements for new procedures, streamlines categories of knowledge, technical skills and clinical skills as well defining the level of core competencies to be achieved during the different stages of training. It also increases the focus on improving the quality of training and the expectations of regulatory authorities such as the national accrediting bodies and the European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS) which is committed to improving medical training at the European level through the development of European Training Requirements (ETR) in the different medical disciplines. The third edition of the IR curriculum has now been endorsed by over 40 national societies worldwide and was formally approved by the UEMS Council in late 2022 and is published on the UEMS website [4], To comply with UEMS ETR requirements, the latest Curriculum document sets out the principles of the European Standards of Postgraduate Medical Specialist Training (formally chapter 6 of the Charter on Postgraduate Training) to ensure training is standardised and of the highest quality. Apart from the requirement of trainees, the document also outlines what is needed from IR trainers and IR training institutions. Trainers and training centres should meet certain basic standards, set out in the curriculum, to ensure that trainers are appropriately qualified to train and that training centres have the right infrastructure to support training. Training centres also require the appropriate clinical volume and necessary other medical specialties to allow exposure to the range and volume of procedures set out in the curriculum. For some training centres reaching the appropriate target range and volume of procedures may mean rotation of trainee’s between hospitals to achieve these necessary training goals. This new curriculum will result in changes to the blueprinting which determines the selection of questions for future EBIR questions for the examination and will also result in changes to the learning modules within the CIRSE Academy and Library which support preparation for the EBIR. Ultimately the aim is to improve the future training and quality of IR’s worldwide, improving patient outcomes and care.