A host city is being sought by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for the next edition of its World Conference on Doping in Sport, due to be held in November 2019.
Interested countries have until November 25 this year to submit an expression of interest to WADA for the event, which brings together a number of key stakeholders across the world.
These include participants from the sport movement, public authorities, anti-doping organisations, athletes, coaches and the media, who attend the Conference in a bid to tackle the most pressing issue facing sport.
Those who put their names forward for the event will have their submissions reviewed in November and December, before sites are visited in the early months of 2017.
The host city for the 2019 Conference will be decided at the WADA Foundation Board meeting on May 18.
Among the criteria for potential hosts is that the proposed venue must be fitted with United Nations-style conference facilities, where delegates are given access to fixed microphones.
The venue must also have capacity for 1,800 to 2,000 people, 40 per cent of which will be delegates, with 50 per cent made up of observers.
Media will occupy the other 10 per cent of available space.
“In order to advance the work necessary to eradicate doping in sport and to protect the clean athlete, WADA believes it timely for the global community to gather under one roof once again on the occasion of a fifth World Conference to be held in 2019,” WADA state in their expression of interest form.
“This will not however be for the purpose of another Code review, rather an opportunity to engage in discussions and debates about anti-doping programmes, practices and processes.”
The fifth edition of the World Conference on Doping in Sport follows the last event, held in 2013 in Johannesburg.
During the meeting, WADA agreed on a revised Code, which came into effect on January 1, 2015.
Current President Sir Craig Reedie was elected unanimously to take over the reigns from Australian John Fahey at the Foundation Board meeting held as part of the 2013 Conference in the South African city.
The 2007 event took place in Madrid, which came after the 2003 Conference was staged in Copenhagen.
The inaugural World Doping in Sport Conference in 1999 prompted the creation of WADA following the signing of the Lausanne Declaration.