https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.123.7

Dariel Burdass, Chief Executive, The Physiological Society

Online Member Community now live

Our Member Community zone, an online platform that allows all members to stay connected through forums and personalised content, has now gone live. The good news is that there has been a wave of introductions and based on anecdotal feedback it has been well received by you – our members. It is hoped that this platform will help physiologists to forge connections and build our community of members as more physiologists recognise the value of being part of The Physiological Society.

Also, to celebrate the launch we are hosting a series of “Ask Me Anything’s” to allow members to put their questions to key people in The Society. The first two have already taken place as follows.

• Professor Mike Tipton – Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Physiology answering questions on the physiological impact of extreme environments and on getting published in Experimental Physiology

• Professor Kim Barett – Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Physiology answering questions about publishing in The Journal of Physiology

Themes: Find your clan

Our Themes help build communities around specific research interests, which can help shape our future events and activities and bring together researchers from across the full breadth of physiology. The Theme Leads have taken an active role in the Member Community and have begun to engage their Theme members in theme-specific discussions. I encourage all of you to log on and introduce yourself to your fellow Theme members so that you can continue to develop your network of global physiology specialists.

Grants scheme: New and improved

To further tailor member benefits for each career stage and to increase the breadth of our membership, we have launched our new grants programme, for funding opportunities in 2022 and onwards, which is designed to achieve a coherent programme of end-to- end support for our members. The goal of the programme is to both encourage and reward long-term membership with the aim of ensuring professional development, to develop advocates for The Society and to improve member engagement, enabling members to see a clear pathway of membership progression.

For those of you familiar with the existing scheme, you may not notice too many obvious differences. For example, we are still offering funds for attendance at Society and Society-supported events, which are incredibly important and understandably popular, and for institutional engagement schemes such as seminars. However, if you dig deeper into the schemes, you will hopefully be able to see that we offer further funding opportunities for each of you, as you progress through your membership and advance in your physiology career. The four objectives of the new scheme are as follows:

• To target funding at supporting Society and Society-sponsored events;
• To raise awareness and encourage engagement with The Society at an institutional level;
• To generate a Fellowship scheme to recognise and enable excellence in physiology and through this to develop an increasing body of established advocates for the discipline;
• To enable The Society to draw upon the expertise of its Fellow Members to assist in preserving and informing its future.

Alongside our new suite of grants, we are also implementing a range of other activities, to provide both pre-and post-application support. It is our aim to help you succeed. We will be hosting a webinar, giving guidance about how to apply for our grants and in case you miss that, there will be a how-to guide on our website, providing you with valuable tips on how to apply for one of our grants. We also want to hear from you; if you are struggling, or if you have any questions before or during your application, give us a call and someone will be on hand to help.

We are also mindful that many of you will be unsuccessful at times, but we do not want you to feel discouraged from applying again. We will be offering feedback to anyone who made it to interview stage and we will also be facilitating and encouraging peer-support groups for those who have had similar experiences so that you can learn and grow collectively from each other.

Your feedback will be very valuable to us and will be at the heart of how the new scheme is evaluated and will assist The Society in making important decisions about how the grants scheme evolves. Please see our Grants- Frequently Asked Questions page on the website for further information physoc.org/grantsFAQ.

And the new Trustees are….

I would also like to thank eligible members who voted in the recent elections and to congratulate the new Trustees.

The following three Trustees will take office at the November 2021 Member Forum.

• Research category: Heidi de Wet, University of Oxford, UK
• Clinical category: Mike Tipton, University of Portsmouth, UK
• Republic of Ireland: Áine Kelly, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

In addition, The Board is pleased to announce the appointment of the next Honorary Treasurer Andrew Parker, University of Oxford, UK and St John’s College, Oxford, UK who will take office at the 2022 Member Forum after a year of shadowing the role.

To read a short bio of each incoming Trustee, please see the related news item on our physoc.org/trustees2021.