The HEC-Meeting dates back to an initiative in the year 1998 of Manfred Weiss and Rolf Hilgenfeld, who were researchers at the Institute for Molecular Biotechnology (IMB) in Jena and intended to establish a meeting format similar to the [http://regiomeeting.eu/ Rhine-Knee Regional Meeting on Structural Biology] in the New Länder. Both conferences are regional meetings of German scientists together with scientific research groups of the neighbouring countries. Nine groups from Germany (the new states and West-Berlin), Poland and Czech Republic participated in the first HEC-Meeting from 8 to 10 October 1998. Later also groups from Austria and the Old Federal States participated. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, no meeting was organized in 2020 and HEC-23 took place as an online meeting. 
Former HEC-Meetings: