During 1983 a group of infectious disease physicians and clinical microbiologists from the Nordic countries met at the Bristol Hotel in Vienna and decided to found the Scandinavian Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, SSAC. In 2011, the Society name was changed to the Nordic Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, NSCMID. Already from the start, SSAC supported the antimicrobial chemotherapy field in a broad sense and supported both basic and clinical research. Over the years, the broad interest of the members in all aspects of infectious diseases resulted in the name change. The Society has its base in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.