Jonathan Ashmore
President

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.91.5

This issue of Physiology News, our Members’ magazine, seeks to give a broader picture of the state of physiology, with reports from across the globe, from physiologists and physiological societies. Here at home, our Society is certainly in good shape. However, as Society President, I am concerned that we focus on identifying The Society as the body which younger physiologists in all areas should consider their natural home. There are sections of the bioscience and biomedical communities which have drifted away from the foundation science and we should seek to bring these back together (see page 9 for details of an exciting Society project seeking to assess the state of physiology in the UK and Ireland).

My term as President of The Society began at our Main Meeting in Edinburgh in July last year. Our Main Meeting this year is, of course, IUPS 2013. This edition of Physiology News should reach you before the congress kicks off. We anticipate a real buzz, with 103 symposia spread over the five days of the Congress, 2000 posters, a late-breaking poster session (a new departure for The Society) and physiologists (both established and newly minted) from 48 countries coming to Birmingham for the meeting.

Although the meeting has been in the making since our bid to host it was accepted in Kyoto in 2009, the excitement of knowing that the meeting is now really happening is tangible. The local organising committee, chaired by David Eisner and Bridget Lumb, along with Society staff, have put huge efforts into ensuring that it will run smoothly. It is a meeting we can look forward to keenly. And I am willing to bet a new set of traffic lights that, as last time The Society hosted the IUPS – in Glasgow in 1993 – IUPS 2013 will be remembered as a truly outstanding international meeting!

In addition to Physiology News (with us in the form of a magazine since 1992), The Journal of Physiology (first published in 1878) and Experimental Physiology (started in 1908), we can now add another publication to The Society’s stable: Physiological Reports.

The first paper of PR (as it is known locally) was published on 6 May this year. The journal represents an extremely stimulating international partnership between The Society, the American Physiological Society and our publishers, Wiley-Blackwell. I do not need to say what interesting times we are all living in when it comes to publishing – nobody seems able to find a crystal ball to predict how the landscape will lie in five to ten years’ time or how the balance between traditional and online publishing will tip. So with the go-ahead for Physiological Reports, Council is ensuring that The Society is thinking ahead and covering all options. It has been extremely impressive to see how enthusiastically both sides of the Atlantic have thrown themselves into this venture and we look forward to the new journal’s success (see page 7 for a report on the US launch of this venture – and don’t forget to come to the UK launch at the IUPS congress).

As well as a new journal, we have, of course, finally acquired and moved into our own headquarters – Hodgkin Huxley House. The building was formally opened by David Willetts, the Minister for Universities and Science, at the end of May (see page 7). The idea of a wholly owned office had been discussed regularly (and rejected) at The Society’s meetings for well over 50 years for reasons of cost. But we have finally taken the plunge. And it is worth it. The location means that the offices should be easily accessible to everyone and we hope that Members of The Society will investigate this new Home for Physiology themselves.