https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.92.6

The 2013 Annual General Meeting (AGM) was held at the Symphony Ballroom, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Birmingham on Wednesday 24 July 2013. The meeting was chaired by David Eisner, who is BHF Professor of Cardiac Physiology at The University of Manchester.

The meeting saw Anne King, Program Director for Human Physiology at The University of Leeds, succeed Rod Dimaline as The Society’s Honorary Treasurer.

Jonathan Ashmore, The Society’s President, reported that 2012 was a landmark year for The Society, with the negotiation of a new contract with Wiley-Blackwell through to the end of 2018, and the purchase of, fit-out and move to The Society’s new home at Hodgkin Huxley House (HHH) all completed within the year.

Giving his final report as Honorary Treasurer, Rod Dimaline explained the financial thinking behind the historic purchase and move to HHH by The Society, which made sound financial sense, in terms of both reducing annual costs and providing a long-term investment. He also told Members that the spend on charitable activity had increased by 21% and publishing income, which remained strong, was now guaranteed to the end of 2018 through the new contract with Wiley.

For the first time in The Society’s history, the Chief Executive was invited to present a report to the meeting. Philip Wright noted that it was a great privilege to be asked to do so. His report focused on three areas of activity for the coming year: the Health of Physiology project; development of a membership strategy; and a review of governance.

The Editors-in-Chief (EiCs) of The Journal of Physiology and Experimental Physiology – David Paterson and Paul McLoughlin, respectively – presented reports to the meeting. Members expressed concern about both falling Impact Factors and The Society’s use of this contentious metric to promote the journals. It was noted that the EiCs and The Society had recently signed up to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which describes deficiencies in how we evaluate research output and proposes alternative approaches.

Sue Wray was unable to attend as Editor-in-Chief of Physiological Reports, so a report was presented on her behalf by Philip Wright. He noted that this new journal is a milestone, being both Open Access (OA) and the first that The Society has launched (having inherited The Journal of Physiology and Experimental Physiology).

Further detail on the AGM can be found at www.physoc.org/agm2013-report

Members also asked questions pertaining to:

• Summer placements and the funding that The Society makes available for these
• The Research Excellence Framework and how The Society might seek to mitigate any negative impacts on the field of physiology
• The falling number of demonstrations at Society events since 2005

Further detail on Member questions can be found at www.physoc.org/agm2013-questions