David Eisner, President, The Physiological Society

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.111.7

I am sure that all readers would agree that science is an international activity and should not be constrained by national borders. This point has been thrown into strong relief by worries over the consequences of Brexit for European funding as well as restrictions on overseas scientists coming to work in the UK. Members of The Society’s Policy and Communications Committee and staff have joined with the rest of the scientific community to try to influence decisions in this area.

The Physiological Society has also been thinking about its own international relations. The Society is, of course, truly international. Our journals have international Editorial Boards and readerships. Indeed, of the three journals, only Experimental Physiology currently has an Editor-in-Chief residing in the UK or Ireland. Meetings have always been international; typically, more than a third of those attending our annual main meetings come from overseas. As regards our membership, 30% live overseas. Readers will not be surprised to learn that the country with the greatest number of members, after the UK, is the USA. What may be less expected is that Nigeria is the third most represented country with 51 members, more than Ireland (47).

The Society has long participated in joint meetings with overseas societies. For many years, up to about 2007, there were typically one or two such joint meetings every year. The number of such meetings has declined in recent years, perhaps an unintended consequence of the move
to having one main meeting a year. For many years, members of The Society have participated in the meetings of the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS), which meets every four years. The Society is also a member of the Federation of European Physiological Societies (FEPS). This September in London, will be the first in a series of Europhysiology meetings organised together with the German and Scandinavian Physiological Societies, and FEPS. The next meetings in this series will be held in Berlin (2020) and Copenhagen (2022). The Europhysiology meetings in Berlin and Copenhagen will constitute the annual meetings of The Society in those years.

In 1935, The Society established the post of Foreign Secretary, occupied until 1945 by AV Hill, who at the time was concerned about the plight of scientists at the hands of the Nazis (see Physiology News 106). Hill was succeeded as Foreign Secretary by ED Adrian, GL Brown and AL Hodgkin. In 2001, the post was renamed as the more politically correct ‘International Secretary’. I was actually the last International Secretary as the post was abolished in 2007 with the idea that all of the activities of The Society had an international dimension and there was therefore no need to have a single role.

Concern has been raised recently at Council that current arrangements do not make it easy for us to coordinate our international activities. Simple questions include: how do we decide which countries and societies to interact with? How do we coordinate the international activities covered by journals, meetings, policy, education and membership?

A major aim of The Society’s new strategy is to enthuse the public, in particular 16- to 25-year-olds, with physiology. Much of what we do occurs in the UK and Ireland. I have, however, been very impressed by activities carried out by our members in areas as far flung as Pakistan, South Africa and Canada. Should The Society be helping its members more with their engagement internationally? If so, are there countries we should prioritise in order to make best use of finite funds?

The Society is often approached for financial help with meetings organised by other societies, particularly those in developing countries. What criteria should be used to decide which of these to prioritise? To what extent should The Society make use of IUPS and FEPS for international activities as opposed to setting up its own bilateral links? To address these, and other, questions, we have set up the International Working Group chaired by Stefan Trapp with the remit of making recommendations as to the way forward. I would like to encourage readers to send their thoughts to either Stefan (s.trapp@ucl.ac.uk) or myself (eisner@manchester.ac.uk).