Early Career Members of Assembly 2 (Respiratory Intensive Care) attended the European Respiratory Society International Congress through a virtual platform in 2021. Sessions of interest to our assembly members included symposia on the implications of acute respiratory distress syndrome phenotyping on diagnosis and treatment, safe applications of noninvasive ventilation in hypoxaemic respiratory failure, and new developments in mechanical ventilation and weaning, and a guidelines session on applying high-flow therapy in acute respiratory failure. These sessions are summarised in this article.