Minutes of the previous
assembly
Minutes
EFIS General Assembly
European
Immunology Congress - EFIS2003 Rhodes
DELPHI Hall
June 10,
2003.
2.00-5.00 pm
Attendants:
EFIS Board Members:
Sergio Romagnani (presiedent), F.Y.Liew
(vice-president), Israel Pecht (past president) Reinhold E. Schmidt
(treasurer), Anna Erdei (secretary general)
EFIS
Members' Delegates
|
COUNTRY/SOCIETY |
DELEGATES |
|
H.Stockinger H.Stoiber |
|
Belarus |
None |
|
Belgium |
None |
|
Bulgaria |
R.Marinova |
|
Croatia |
S.Jonjic |
|
Czech Republic |
I.Hana |
|
France |
C.Sautes-Fridman A.Bernard C.Bernard |
|
Germany |
H.Peter A.Radbruch G.Hammerling |
|
Greece |
M.Varla-Leftherioti |
|
Hungary |
J.Szekeres-Barthó |
|
Ireland |
D.Doherty |
|
Israel |
Z.Fishelson |
|
Italy |
L.Adorini A.Mantovani |
|
Baltic Societies (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) |
none |
|
Poland |
A.Mackiewicz |
|
Portugal |
None |
|
Romania |
C.Bona |
|
Russia |
D.Alexeev |
|
Scandinavian Societies
(Sweden/Finland/Denmark/Norway/Iceland) |
S.Thiel R.Jonsson M.Troye-Blomberg |
|
Slovakia |
M. Buc |
|
Slovenia |
none |
|
Spain |
J.Vives |
|
Switzerland |
H.Acha-Orbea |
|
The Netherlands |
G.Kraal |
|
Turkey |
I.Barlan |
|
United Kingdom |
W.Harnett M. Harnett D.Xu |
|
Yugoslavia |
M.Colic |
IUIS was represented M.Daha, secr.gen.
Agenda
1. Adoption of the
Agenda and approval of the Minutes of the last GA held in Stocholm (can be
found on our homepage: www.efis.org)
2. President's report
(S.Romagnani)
3. Secretary's report
(A.Erdei)
4. Treasurer's report
(R.E.Schmidt)
5. Immunology Letters
Editor-in Chief's report (I.Pecht)
Introduction of new Editor-in-chief: V.Horejsi
6. Report on EFIS-CIG
activities (M.C. Bene)
7. European Research
Council (R.E. Schmidt)
8. Information on the
European Immunology Congress (EIC)to be hekld in Paris
in 2006 - by Catherine Sautes-Fridmann
9. Presentation by
candidates to host European Immunology Congress - EFIS 2009 and vote on the
projects
5 min. presentations by the following
candidate Societies:
Czech, German, Romanian. Turkish
10. Election of new Board Members (vice-president and
treasurer)
3-5 min. introduction by the candidates:
M.Daha and S.H.E.Kaufmann (vice-president)
R.E.Schmidt and H.Stockinger (treasurer)
followed by voting
11. Matters arising
12. Address by the incoming President
1. The Agenda was adopted
and the Minutes of the last GA (held in Stocholm) were approved
2.
President's report (see Appendix #1)
During
the report, on behalf of EFIS S.Romagnani expressed sincere thanks to
Israel Pecht for his tremendous and very succesful work done as president and
as Editor-in-Chief of Immunology Letters in the past years.
3.
Secretary's report (see Appendix #2)
The Audit provided by Steuerberater
Seiler and Partner GbR had been checked and approved by Prof. Michail
Daniliidis, an independent delegate of EFIS Member Societies. His report at the
GA was approved all Member Societies.
4.
Treasurer's report (see Appendix #3)
No comment was made following
the report.
5. Immunology Letters
- Editor-in Chief's report (I.Pecht)
Introduction of new
Editor-in-chief: V.Horejsi
I.P. informed the General
Assembly that the journal improved a lot recently. The rate of
manuscript-influx and acceptance increased, and by now the IF of Imm.Lett. is over 2. He wished V.Horejsi, next Editor-in-Chief a
successful continuation.
V.H. mentioned his plans to
renew the journal. Some of these are as follows: 1 review or 2
minireviews/issue; introduction of "Discussion pages" and
"Correspondence"; speeding up publication - "fast-trek"
publication. V.H. will continue publishing papers by EFIS-lecturers, special
issues and abstracts of EFIS-related meetings. Regarding the Editorial structure
V.H. plans to establish a broad Editorial Board and have only four Executive
Editors. Electronic submission of papers will also be introduced.
6. Report on EFIS-CIG
activities (M.-C. Bene, see Appendix #4)
7. European Research
Council (R.E. Schmidt)
R.E.S. participated recently at ERC-meetings, where
several key issues were raised regarding research in life sciences in
During the past
years particularly EMBO (Prof. Frank Gannon) and FEBS (Prof. Julio Celis) as
well as ELSF (European Life Science Foundation) have become very active to use
this window of opportunity to create a European research council, which then
will be responsible for funding investigator driven research, which will be reviewed
also by peers.
The chairman of
this high level working group (HLWG) which includes representatives of the
British MRC as well as of INSERM and DFG and Volkswagen Stiftung has generated
a consensus paper, the aim of which is the creation of an
European Research Council (ERC) to fund basic science, by starting with life
science.
Everybody in the national
societies of EFIS is asked to work for this purpose and influence the national
representatives working on the European constitution to bring research into
this constitution. Everybody is asked to spread this news and lobby for this
goal.
8. Information on the
European Immunology Congress (EIC)to be held in Paris
in 2006 - by Catherine Sautes-Fridmann (www.eci-paris2006.com).
Catherine Sautes-Fridman presented
the key points of the project -elaborated with a European steering committee-
of new type of triennial European Congress of Immunology (ECI). These are the
following: commitment of National Societies to replace their annual meeting
with the ECI every three years, low cost fees and accommodation encouraging
young researchers to attend, easily accessible location. A number of national
societies have confirmed that they will not organize their annual meeting in
2006 but replace it by this new type of European Congress of Immunology. This
represents more than 90% of the total number of European immunologists
registered to national societies. The first joint meeting of European National
societies of Immunology /16th European Congress of Immunology will be held in
9.
Presentation by candidates to host European Immunology Congress - EFIS 2009 and
vote on the projects
The
Czech, German, Romanian and Turkish Societies submitted projects for the
organization of European Immunology Congress - EFIS 2009. After 5-min
representations given by I.Hana, R.E.Schmidt, C.Bona
and I Barlan ballots were distributed and voting followed.
The
results were as follows:
Project presented by the
Czech Society: 10 votes
Project presented by the
German Society: 19 votes
Project presented by the
Romanian Society: 2 votes
Project presented by the
Turkish Society: 4 votes
The 17th European
Immunology Congress - EFIS 2009 will therefore be held in Berlin.
10. Election of new Board
Members
The
positions of the Vice-President, Treasurer and Secretary General were to be
renewed. EFIS Member Societies had been informed 3 months before the elections
of the names of candidates selected by the EFIS Nomination Committee. S.H.Kaufmann (nominated by the German Society) and M.Daha
(nominated by the Dutch Society) were candidates for the position of
Vice-President, H.Stockinger (nominated by the Austrian Society) and
R.E.Schmidt (nominated by the German Society and confirmed by the EFIS Board)
were candidates for the position of the Treasurer. For the position of
Secretray General there was no new candidate, re-nomination of A.Erdei has been suggested by the Board.
After
distributing the ballots voting followed.
Number
of voting delegates: 30
Number
of Board members:
5
Total
number of votes: 35
The results were as
follows:
- Stefan H.Kaufmann was elected as Vice-Presideent
- Reinhold E.Schmidt was re-elected as Treasurer
- Anna Erdei was
re-elected as Secretary General
11. Matters arising
No matter was raised.
12. Address by the
incoming President
E.Liew pointed out some major fields of EFIS-activities. He
stressed the importance of further improving Immunology Letters, the official
journal and only source of income of EFIS. He expressed his appreciation for
the very enthusiastic and successful work done by Israel Pecht, former
President and Editor-in-Chief of Imm.Lett. He indicated that V.Horejsi, new
Editor-in-Chief will continue the work and is encouraged to introduce changes.
Another major field is the new initiative to organize European Immunology (or
as called earlier: "PanEuropean") Congresses, for the first time in
13. Address by the newly
elected Vice-President
S.H.Kaufmann thanked the members for his election and
expressed his pleasure to cooperate with the new president, Eddy Liew, an old
friend of his. He stressed the importance of bringing the different members
closer together and therefore supports meetings like the one in Paris in 2006.
He stressed that EFIS has to do more political work, in particular at the EU/EC
level because immunology/EFIS needs to be represented there so that funding
agencies consider more frequently and perhaps even earmark immunology.He also made a strong point on public understanding of
immunology/EFIS. More work is needed, so that lay people can understand the
importance of immunology for their health (this is important for politicians).
President's report (see Appendix #1)
The main activity and
responsibility of the Board in the last three years following the
The following items were
discussed in different Board meetings (Stockholm, July 2001; London January
2002; Rhodes, June 2002; Budapest, December 2002; Berlin March 2003) with the representatives
of the Hellenic Society of Immunology: Access to Rhodes and accommodation, Venue of
symposia, plenary sessions and symposia, catering, Costs and sponsorships,
Advertising, Scientific program
It was agreed, that registration
fees and local accommodation for invited speakers and chairs will be met by the
congress. Moreover the following levels of travel support were recommended:
1000 Euros for
The Board had a
detailed discussion on the program with invited representatives of HSI. The
decisions were collated by the HSI and distributed to all Board Members before
finalizing. Possible topics of various sessions were discussed in detail and
some changes were introduced as a result. The Board accepted the suggestion of
Professor Danilidis that, where possible, to increase representation in the
program scientists from Eastern European countries, including Bulgaria, Czech
Reublic, Slovakia, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Yugoslavia, Baltic countries, and
also Finland and Portugal.
The Board agreed that the final scientific
program appeared to be excellent and since you have now it available and the
meeting is going on, all of you can realize if the work that has been done is
satisfactory.
In any case, the
Board wishes to express its appreciation for the tremendous amount of work
carried out by the HSI. The Board was greatly encouraged by the positive and
vigorous attitude of the organizing committee and felt confident that this
would be a highly successful congress.
Immunology Letters (Editor-in-chief:
Prof.
The process of
reshuffling the Editorial Board has been successful: 1. A new member
from the
Concerning a new cover-design, Israel Pecht proposed a
crystallography of TCR-MHC-peptide complex, which was approved by the Board.
New initiatives to implement the journal were deccided
- EFIS Lectures will automatically be published as Review
articles.
-
Every meeting that is supported financially by EFIS will provide some
manuscripts.
-
National Meetings will be encouraged to provide the journal with an overview of
their meetings.
-
Elsevier will make the mention of "official journal of EFIS" (at www.elsevier.com/locate/immlet ) a hot link.
Israel
Pecht will leave the Board at this meeting and he will also leave his position
of Editor-in-Chief of Immunology Letters. V. Horejisi (A. Mowat too late)has been choosen by the Board as the new Editor-in-Chief.
On behalf of all the Board Members and
the scientific community of European Immunologists I would like to express to
Israel our full and sincere gratitude for the great work he did along several years.
Despite the difficulties, due to the high competion in the field of journals
dealing with immunologic topics, he was able to maintain the journal alive and
its impact factor is now at acceptable levels. I would like also to thank
Israel for the phantastic job he did in the Board for many years. In the five
years of my presence in the Board, before as Vice-president and then as
President I had the opportunity to enjoy his experience, his cleverness, his
efficiency and last, but not least, his generosity. Israel gave to me and to
the other Member of the Board a very important help in managing all the
activity of EFIS and in taking the most critical decisions.
The EFIS community likes to give you
this small gift as a recognition and acknowledgements for your really
impressive activity in the Society.
European Journal of Immunology
In
my Introduction to the 25th EFIS Anniversary Ceremony in
EFIS-lectures to be delivered at
National Meetings
- Prof. Jurg Tschopp, invited by the
French Society
- Prof. Lorenzo
Moretta, invited by the Polish Society
- Prof.Birgitta Heyman, invited by the
German Society
-Dr.
Giorgio Trinchieri, invited by the Italian Society of Immunology
EFIS transfered 1000 Euros for
each Society and called their attention to the request of the Board to provide
a review of the talks for Imm. Lett.
Relationship with IUIS
The
last IUIS Council was held in
Finally,
on this point, I would like to inform you that the Italian Society of
Immunology has officially proposed Roma as candidate for the International
Immunology Congress of 2010. I really hope that all our
sister European Societies will do any effort to sustain this candidacy.
John Humphrey Courses
- “Induction of
innate and adaptive immunity” in Zakopane (26-29, Sept. 2002.) organized by the
Polish Society was supported by 10.000 Euros.
- “Molecular basis of
immune response” – 6th meeting in Puschino (15-22.Sept.
2002.) organized by the British and Russian Societies was supported by 2.000
USD
Organizers of both meetings
were informed about the request of the Board to provide a special issue of the
meeting.
A new initiative:
"Pan-European Immunology Meeting"
The aim is to assemble a
critical mass of European immunologists to organize all the National Meetings
together in
I would like to
thank Catherine Sautes-Fridman, who worked very hard for the success of this so
interesting initiative.
Preparations for the elections
in 2003
A committee,
responsible for nominations at the next election of EFIS-officers was appointed
by the Board. This comprises the following members: Sergio Romagnani, Eddy
Liew, and Anna Erdei. Call for
nominations were sent out to all EFIS Member Societies. According to the
Statutes, the dead-line for submission is 8th, March 2003 (three months before
the day of General Assembly where elections take place.)
Invitation to submit bids for EFIS2009 were sent out
to EFIS member Societies. According to the Statutes, the dead-line for
submission of nominations is the end of 2002.
There were two candidates to the position of
Vice-President: Stephan Kaufmann from the German Society and Moh Daha from the Dutch Society.
There were also two candidates to the position of
Treasurer: Reinold Schmidt from the German Society and Hannes Stockinger from
the Austrian Society.
Each candidate will have 5 minutes to present himself
and his program.
Bids for organizing EFIS
Congress 2009
Presentation
(5 minutes each) by candidates to host European Immunology Congress EFIS 2009:
Czec
German
Romanian
Turkish
Vote
on the projects
EFIS joined ELSF (European
Life Sciences Foundation)
The Executive Committee of
ELSF accepted the application of EFIS on
Akowledgments
At
the end of my mandate as EFIS President, I would like to thank very much all
the Members of the Board. I already gave my thanks to
Secretary's report (Appendix #2)
As secretary general my main task is maintaining
contact with member societies and to assist the Board's work to make EFIS as
efficient as possible. This involves organizing Board Meetings and the General
Assembly, writing up the Minutes of these meetings and distributing them to all
EFIS-members.
Since the last GA in Stockholm the EFIS Board held
five meetings:
The
Minutes of these meetings (except the last one) were sent out to all Member
Societies.
Asyou
all know, communication with EFIS-members is
by now mostly done via e-mail. Except a very few sociteites this is going
smoothly.
Special
activities:
- Homepage
The EFIS-homepage (www.efis.org)
is maintained by I. Kacskovics, in Budapest, and all of you who ever contacted
him (asking to put on meetings, jobs, etc.) might have witnessed his very fast
response and action - so this is indeed a very active service where one can get
easily information about various activities. It had been modified this year,
based on suggestions received from members. Now there is more information of
the main screen and one can easily click on several interactive fields.
The appearance of EFIS-related meetings had been reorganized and non-EFIS
related meetings are also continuously updated. Job-market is very
popular based on a recent survey and feedbacks. I would like to take this
opportunity again and ask all EFIS-members to use this homepage. I also would
like to ask each Society to inform me about changes in the Board of their
Society, to make communication continuous and easy.
Finally I would like to thank
the cooperation of most of the Societies, in the hope, that it will remain the
same in the next years.
Balance 2002 €
71.003,31
Board Meeting
Budapest 2002 €
920,50
(balance of
costs in 2003)
Board Meeting
Berlin 2003 € 3.456,04
12th
Symposium on Signal Processing ‘03 € 20.047,84
Preparations
Pan European Meeting
Paris 2006 €
916,75
Audit of EFIS account €
1.299,20
Award for Dr.
Trinchieri as lecturer €
1.010,50
Secretarial
work EFIS homepage €
1.378,84
Expenditures
Immunology Letters 2002 €
20.035,00
Bank fees,
tax, duty €
295,39
Registration
fee Kamer von Koophandel €
39,18
EFIS CIG, Rhodes € 110,50
EFIS European
Immunology Conference approx.
€ 20.000,00
Bursaries
EFIS Signal
meeting 2003 € 5.000,00
Bursaries
-------------------------------------------
Expenditures
Immunology Letters 2003
approx.
€ 20.000,00
Secretaries Assistance approx. € 3.200,00
ECIG/ECLM approx. € 2.000,00
Mailing and
account duties approx € 2.000,00
IUIS council
approx. € 2.000,00
Income to be expected approx. € 50.000,00
Immunology
letters, balance for 2003
Total
Spending 12/2003 approx. € 103.709,74
===================================================================
Appendix #4
efis-CIG GENERAL ASSEMBLY -
Present: MC Béné (
Apologies: Siraj Misbah (
Thanks to Youla
Varla-Lefteriofti, we had a nice, -albeit relatively difficult to find-,
meeting room in the Rhodes Palace Hotel for this 6th general
assembly of our group.
General information
We have unfortunately lost one
of our members, Anatoli Cherdeev, who died last year. Contact will be made
during the meeting, likely at the Efis general assembly, to try and find out
who is the new correspondent for
Several societies have shown
their interest in joining efis-cig and are receiving all information. Update
can be found on the efis-cig webpage (http://www.efis.org)
then look for the Clinical Immunology section).
Efis-cig was invited to
give a lecture on the situation of clinical imunology in
Educational session
The third efis-cig
educational session took place the same evening as this general assembly,
A great novelty is that we
were able to get EACCME credits for this session. It should become systematic
to apply for these credits at the UEMS, perhaps also for other scientific
meetings organized by European immunological societies.
In the same line of thought,
societies are strongly encouraged to inform efis-cig of their events,
for announcement through the efis-cig web and web-page.
It is proposed and adopted to
have the next Educational Session at the meeting of the Balkan Association of
Immunological Societies (BAIS) in September 2004 in Istambul, as this might be
easier for students to go there rather than to
A first topic proposed for the
meeting in Istambul is "Hypersensitivities, from bench to bedside" in
order to bridge between basic immunology and allergology.
Other topics are welcome, and
a poll will be taken in the fall of 2003.
Relationships with european bodies
-
EU
Efis-cig answered the call
for expressions of interest (EOI) within the 6th PCRD, asking for a
network of excellence, but got no reply.
As the policy of EU has been
evolving in the 6th PCRD in the past months, another attempt will be
made to answer the proposal for research programs, the deadine of which will be
in November. More information will be provided soon.
The Train Net Success project
will also be looked into more closely as it might be interesting for
tele-training.
-
ELM-EA
European Laboratory Medicine
is now a multidiscipline society of european
societies, including EFIS, with affiliate National members (including several
immunology societies). It keeps working, in close relationship with in vitro
devices manufacturers, in various transdisciplinary topics of Laboratory
Medicine.
The input of immunological
societies could be twofold:
-
involvement into projects with an immunological side
-
help in the translation
of items in two ongoing projects, CUMUL (on the nomenclature of laboratory
tests) and Labtestonline (providing information to laypeople).
For more information, get in
touch with MC Béné.