Dear Colleagues, In the ESB Autumn Newsletter and End-of-the-Year Address we highlighted the three main points on which the strategy of the current ESB Council is based. In the present newsletter, we provide you with a summary of the activities that we have undertaken and that we would like to promote.
1. Communication
Alongside with our regular newsletter issues we have taken a big step forward in terms of our use of IT tools.
The ESB Council has re-established the link with the company identified for the construction and management of the new website.
Contacts have been made by our Communication Liaison Officer, Prof Pedro Granja with Mr Florian Cloquemin a free-lance based in Strasbourg. Mr Cloquemin has submitted to the Council a proposal and demonstration of website platforms to select. The Council has reached an unanimous consent about a very modern and interactive platform that will respond to all the needs of our society. It is predicted that the new website will be available by the end of June. In the meantime, the current website has been largely updated. We are aware of its limitations, but we think that the tool can decently serve its purpose until the new website will be available.
The president?s email address as well as the secretary?s email address are now fully operative and you can send email directly to the our secretary Prof Marc Bonher, our interim treasurer, Prof Pedro Granja and our upcoming Treasurer Prof Peter Dubruel as well as to me as a President to the following addresses:
- secretary@esbiomaterials.eu
- treasurer@esbiomaterials.eu
- president@esbiomaterials.eu
In addition, you have the opportunity to follow the President Twitter account that has been created that is @ESBPresident You will be kept informed about news relevant to our society posted on our website and have the opportunity to participate in the discussion of issues of importance for our field. Thanks to the hard work of our Vice-President, Prof Michael Doser a contract has now been drafted with Secal, the company based in Strasbourg who will take the responsibility of all the administrative issues of our society.
Michael is currently working to achieve a new legal address for our society in the Athena premises in Strasbourg. This action will allow us to open a new bank account in Strasbourg in a near future. On behalf of the whole Council I would like to offer our sincere apologies to all those members who have received an automatic email soliciting the payment of the membership fee for 2014 and who have already fulfilled this task by paying the fee. As you know, during the last General Assembly and in following communications we pledged a reduction of the fees. Unfortunately, this automatic message was still linked to the old fees with the result that many faithful members have paid more than due. We would like to ask these colleagues to accept our proposal of adjusting the balance in 2015 when we will apply a discount to those who have paid more this year. During the last Council meeting the new fees have been deliberated with a reduction of approximately 10% across the spectrum.
The new membership fees are:
- (1) Active member: 130 Euros;
- (2) Junior member: 25 Euros;
- (3) Senior member: 50 Euros;
- (4) Lab membership: 230 Euros;
- (5) Corporate member: 300 Euros.
The membership reduction applies only to those members who will opt out for the printed copies of the Journal Materials Science: Materials in Medicine. These members will still have a full access to our journal electronic copies through our website. Those who still want to receive the printed copy will see their membership fee as per 2013.
2. Innovation.
In the Autumn Newsletter we stated that ?The Council, together with the conference chairmen and local organizing committees, should adopt a more divergent thinking to find new routes for translation during our annual conferences and beyond?. In addition, it is our belief that no significant result can be achieved solely through the work of the Council members. While referring to a more participated society we meant that we should promote the activities of working groups with specific focuses. Indeed, innovation should be one of them.
This is the reason why we would like to open a call for group proposals that have the objective of talking problems relevant to our field. As far as Innovation is concerned, we would like to promote working groups drafting national Position Papers about the Bottlenecks in Translational Research for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering. We would like the national biomaterials societies through their Presidents and Boards as well as any other national group where no Biomaterial Society is available to work at their own Position Paper. Documents of this kind have already been drafted in the UK by the Biomedical Applications ? Biomaterials Committee Dvision (BMAD) (http://www.iom3.org/bmad-report) and by an international group of experts who published an Opinion Paper in Acta Biomaterialia (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actbio.2014.01.004).
We believe that similar reports could help to add critical mass for the ESB to inform policy makers, regulatory bodies and funding agencies. The ESB Council reserves the right to assess each document on the basis of the reputation and qualification of the team involved and content. In the case of countries where a national Biomaterials Society is established, its endorsement will be necessary.
3. Education.
The ESB Council is working hard to promote new initiatives in the field of Education and Training. A proposal has been drafted by our Education Liaison Officer Prof Joelle Amedee and its details will be discussed in the next ESB Council meeting that will be held in Liverpool on 31st March-1st April 2014. And it is on this note that I would like to remind you all that the deadline for abstract submission to our annual conference to be held in Liverpool, UK from 31st August to 3rd September 2013 and chaired by Prof John Hunt, University of Liverpool is approaching (31st March). The conference website is already available and provides information about deadlines, venues and other organisational aspects of the event. We very much look forward to your participation! Brighton February 2014 Prof Matteo Santin (on behalf of the E*SB Council)