At ECR 2023, the chosen theme is ‘The Cycle of Life’, intended to reflect the centrality of radiology to healthcare throughout life. Radiology is one of the few medical disciplines that follows a person’s entire life journey from start to finish, facilitating the first glimpse of life inside the womb, and accompanying us through childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Radiology offers us clear images identifying simple and complex injuries and illnesses, diagnostic clues when the cause of illness is unknown, and insights into the progress of treatment when we are sick. Furthermore, imaging can offer physiological assessment of healthy individuals, and can screen for possible sub-clinical disease. Even in death, post-mortem and forensic imaging can provide indications of the manner of death, as well as research opportunities that can help further our understanding of the human body. At ECR 2023, we will use medical imaging to examine all aspects of the human life cycle, from pre-birth to the afterlife.