https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.107.6

The purpose of these short updates is to keep you informed about the inner workings of our Committees. The following summaries detail the meetings of the past few months.

History & Archives Committee

Several topics recently discussed by the History and Archives Committee (HAC; chaired by Graham Dockray) have already been covered in PN. For example, the last issue contained a piece by David Miller on AV Hill’s Nobel Prize Diploma (PN 106, p.12–13): HAC has debated the most appropriate way to represent the diploma at H³. Should we display the original diploma (given that it is unique there are security and insurance issues here)? Should we produce a facsimile for display, and if so should it be a copy of the whole diploma, front and back, or just the main part? Should it be on a wall or in a display cabinet? Before long, visitors to Hodgkin Huxley House should be able to see the outcome of these discussions.

Oversight of The Society archives is a major part of the HAC remit. The last issue of PN (106, p. 10–11) contained a piece by Georgina Lever describing her work on the accrual of the latest batch of archives, which is something that is done every 5 years. The archives provide a research resource that, for example, was used by Tilli Tansey for her piece in this issue of PN, page 44.

The 150^th anniversary of the founding of The Society will occur in 2026. The development of a strategy on the part of HAC to meet the challenge was the focus of a special meeting in January. A number of relevant projects have been initiated including enhancement of open access resources on our own website.

Policy & Communications Committee

The Policy and Communications Committee (PCC, ex-Policy Committee, chaired by Lucy Donaldson) is working on several projects at the moment. Of note for The Society’s Members is that we are looking at the structure of the committee to identify areas in which we could strengthen its membership. If you have an interest in contributing to our work with research funders or to our external communications, we’d like to hear from you.

We have recently released several reports on our activities, including our events at last year’s party conferences, a YouGov survey about stress, a membership survey about Brexit, and the report on the PCC/Education and Outreach joint meeting on the Teaching Excellence Framework, in partnership with Universities UK. We also contributed to the recent HEFCE consultation on REF2021.

The In Vivo sub-committee, chaired by Andrew Trafford, continues to work with the UK Bioscience Sector Coalition in meetings with the Animals in Science Regulation Unit (ASRU). Currently, ASRU is looking at the process and form of the PPL, hosting stakeholder meetings around the UK. Our Members have been contributing to this process, meeting with ASRU in January and March in preliminary discussions, and contributing to these on-going stakeholder consultations.

Affiliate Working Group Committee

The second meeting of the newly formed Affiliate Working Group (AWG) was held at H³ on 22 March 2017. As the Society’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) will be held in London (on 12 July), and will not be part of the main meeting in Brazil, it was decided there will be several talks and presentations around the meeting, some of which will be delivered by our Affiliate Members. All members of the AWG agreed that a mixture of oral and poster presentations would work well, with the addition of a prize for the best of each.

The AWG is also actively involved in organising Future Physiology www.physoc.org/futurephysiology, our first multi-day conference dedicated to early career researchers. The conference, happening in Leeds in December, includes invited presentations by early career and senior researchers, oral and poster presentations, inspirational talks, and career development workshops.

The use of social media to engage the Affiliate membership was the next point of discussion. It was agreed that more could be done, but the question is more of what? Managing a social media account is no small task, so it was agreed that an Affiliate-focused newsletter would be a good way to establish regular communication. If any Affiliate Members have ideas, we’re all ears!

With this in mind, all members felt regular columns in Physiology News would be a good idea to improve membership engagement. It was agreed after discussion with the PN Editorial Board that the AWG will guest edit issue 109 later this year, which members should receive shortly before the Future Physiology meeting.

Full details of the AWG can be found online at www.physoc.org/affiliate-working-group

Education & Outreach Committee

The main points of business at the Education and Outreach Committee meeting in April, chaired by Sarah Hall, included an update on the progress of the new Physiology Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), and a report on the impact evaluation of the Vacation Studentship scheme. The Committee met with the project team that is leading on the development of our MOOC, which will be an introductory course aimed at 16 to 19-year-olds to encourage them to consider studying physiology at university.

General feedback regarding content was given to the team from the University of Liverpool, which is developing the MOOC in partnership with The Physiological Society and FutureLearn. The Committee also recommended potential avenues for advertising the MOOC to its core demographic. Enrolment on the course will open this summer. Read more on page 18.

The Committee was very pleased with the responses presented from a recent survey of past Vacation Studentship awardees during 2013–2015: 84% of respondents are still in academia, 60% of whom are doing what they consider to be physiological MSc, PhD or postdoc research, and 100% said the Vacation Studentship had a positive impact on their career plans. A full report of the survey findings will be published in PN 108.

Membership & Grants Committee

Tasked with leadership of The Society’s membership strategy and grant oversight, the Membership & Grants Committee held the first of their bi-annual meetings this April, chaired by Rachel Tribe.

The agenda covered membership reporting, grant impact reporting and developments to the newly installed customer relationship management (CRM) system. A member of the Affiliate Working Group attended to discuss matters relating to Affiliates, and to update on planning for Future Physiology. Also discussed was the launch of Fellowships and the unfortunate delay with getting the first round of applications approved. With the technical delay to be resolved shortly after the meeting, the Committee were confident those applicants waiting on a decision would be notified soon.

The Committee also heard the initial highlights from the 2017 membership survey, which had closed 2 days before. The results of this survey will feed into the Committee’s planning over the next 18 months, ensuring our activities are geared towards the needs of the membership. Further insight from the survey can be found on page 12.

Meetings Committee

Plans are progressing for Europhysiology 2018, and discussions are under way regarding the events in 2020 and 2022.

Looking ahead to The Society’s next main meeting, taking place in 2019, the Committee is currently considering three potential Scottish locations for this. There are several topic meetings in the pipeline including ‘Mitochondria – Form and Function’, which takes place in London on 14–15 September 2017, and the organising committee for ‘Experimental Models in Physiology’ (planned for 2018) will shortly be finalising the programme for this event. The H³ symposium on ‘The Integrative Physiology of Physical Inactivity Across the Lifespan’ was approved, and it was deemed that this, together with another proposal, would make for a good combined event. Support for international meetings in 2017 will be given to the 37^th PSN Conference in Kaduna, Nigeria, as part of our remit to enhance the communication of physiology both nationally and internationally.

On a more general note, re-forecasting of budgets (where necessary) and a review of registration fees for events taking place in 2019 and beyond, to enable widespread participation from all physiologists, regardless of career stage, will be carried out. The Society will be drafting a form for the online submission of proposals for topic meetings and H³ symposiums. Lastly, Sue Deuchars has replaced Ken O’Halloran as Chair of the committee and will continue in this role until the 2018 AGM.

Publications Committee

The Spring Publications Committee was held on May 4 2017 and chaired by Prem Kumar.

Since the last meeting, a new long-term publishing contract with Wiley for Experimental Physiology and The Journal of Physiology has been signed.

The Editor-in-Chiefs (EiCs) of Experimental Physiology and The Journal of Physiology have continued to implement their strategic plans for the journals. Mike Tipton, EiC of Experimental Physiology, has restructured the Editorial Board, with one new Senior Editor and 44 Reviewing Editors being appointed. Kim Barrett, EiC of The Journal of Physiology, is improving the evenness of coverage across physiology and is particularly pleased to have appointed new renal and endocrine Reviewing Editors, Dennis Brown and Fiona Gribble. The number of direct submissions for Physiological Reports has gone up, with the overall number of submissions increasing too. The Joint Management Board is in the process of appointing the new EiC, to take over when Sue Wray steps down at the end of the year.

Wiley provided a publisher’s report for each journal, showing that article downloads are increasing.

Ken O’Halloran has stood down from the Publications Committee, and Sue Deuchars as the interim Chair of Meetings Committee, has replaced him as an ex-officio member.