https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.110.8

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

Council

Overseeing the development of a charity’s strategy is one of the most important tasks a trustee must fulfil, and strategy update was on the agenda at the November Council. It was noted that considerable progress had been made in developing each strand of the 2018-2022 Strategy, and Committees will now develop their activities further:

• Meetings (scientific) – to advance physiology through our meetings and improve networking opportunities for physiologists including opportunities to present their work.
• Publications – to ensure our journals continue to be international flagships for physiological research, across the sub-disciplines of physiology, where any researcher is proud to publish.
• Engagement – through the overarching theme of ‘Lifelong Health’, The Society will engage our target audience as well as secondary audiences (such as policy-makers and press) required to influence them.
• Internal processes – to include more efficient working, better measures of outcomes and impact, improved governance, budgetary control and cross-departmental ways of working.

It was agreed the draft strategy would be submitted to Council on 7 March for approval.

Another important point of business included an update from the Property Strategy Working Group, chaired by President-elect Bridget Lumb. Following the closing date for the submissions to tender for the internal and external building work it was noted that two of the tenders were being explored in further detail by consultants Peter Fox (TP2MC) and Janie Price (Kennedy O’Callaghan Architects), who both have extensive technical knowledge. It was agreed that they would review the design and build techniques used for each tender and would make a recommendation to The Society regarding the best firm to engage. Members may be interested to note that Roxwells have been engaged to carry out the building work, which is now well underway.

The Society was invited to nominate candidates for REF2021. Nine candidates submitted completed forms for REF2021 and requested The Society endorse their nomination. The Trustees reviewed each candidate in turn and supported them all, noting the mix of areas of physiology and that several candidates could be submitted for more than one of the sub-panels, if required. The Society had previously supported the application of three individuals to be sub-panel chairs. Council agreed that, should any of these not be appointed as a REF sub-panel Chair, The Society should support them as sub-panel members.

Membership trends were reviewed by Council, and the success of the Society Representatives event in November was also noted. One of the outcomes from this meeting was the development of a resources pack to support the Society Representatives when promoting The Society and benefits of membership at their institutions, for example, at university induction days.

It was also noted that the Fellowship scheme was being reviewed to explore how The Society could engage better with the Fellows and draw on their considerable experience. This would include exploring opportunities for Fellows to engage with early career physiologists and Affiliate Members.

Education & Outreach Committee

At a busy meeting of the Education and Outreach Committee in October, the main points of business included updates on The Society’s 2018-2022 Strategy review, our Physiology MOOC, a review of the Vacation Studentship Scheme (VSS), and discussion of proposals for developing Public Engagement (PE). The Committee put forward a number of suggestions for the theme and target audience of the Strategy, and discussion of these suggestions is ongoing. The Outreach Officer presented some recommendations on how future PE work might align with The Society’s new Strategy, and the Committee discussed several ways that The Society could better encourage, support and recognise Members’ PE activities. An undergraduate from Brunel University presented the outcomes of his studentship at The Society’s London office in summer 2017 (building on the survey reported at the last meeting); highlights included the large proportion of awardees continuing to higher degrees or related work. One of the case studies gathered as part of this project is published on page 43. The Committee also received a favourable report on The Society’s MOOC, ‘Physiology: The Science of Life’, which ran for the first time this autumn. Over 7,000 people registered for the MOOC (exceeding the 6k target), and further analysis of learners’ engagement with, and feedback on, the content is in progress. The results of this analysis will inform any modifications to the MOOC, before it is offered again in 2018; further details will be released as soon as the dates are agreed.

Finance Committee

The Finance Committee met with the haysmacintyre Audit Partner to agree the 2017 audit planning and confirm the statutory requirements and process for compiling the 2017 accounts. The Committee noted the inclusion of risk management in their Terms of Reference as of November 2017 and discussed the Charity Commission guidance on reporting key risks in the Trustees Annual Report.

The Committee also received the Q4 Management Accounts and noted key variances against forecasts. The updated financial delegations and anti-fraud policy was reviewed and approved for recommendation to Council. Finally, the Committee received a presentation from Cazenove Capital Management on The Society investment portfolio performance.

Meetings Committee

The recent Meetings Committee was held on 4 October and was chaired by Sue Deuchars, University of Leeds, UK.

The main steer of this meeting was to conduct a review of the current portfolio of Society events, taking into consideration the aims of the core strategy working group, together with the results of the membership survey. Society meetings give members the opportunity to present and share their research, and also provide networking. The format, structure and timing of the Main Meeting was appropriate, but may be enhanced by the addition of satellite meetings and workshops.

Topic Meetings provide breadth across a topic and an opportunity for attendees to meet with those that they would not ordinarily engage with. They can also explore the interfaces of physiology with other disciplines. The format of these will therefore not radically change but the planning of each Topic Meeting programme will involve a wider team of people.

The funding originally allocated to support three H3 symposia at Hodgkin Huxley House will now be allocated to support satellite meetings and workshops ahead of the annual Main Meeting.

Since the last meeting, we have confirmed that Physiology 2019, the Main Meeting, will take place in Aberdeen from Monday, 6 to Wednesday, 10 July, and funding will be available on a competitive basis for members to organise satellite meetings and workshops on Sunday, 5 July 2019.

Publications Committee

The Publications Committee met at the beginning of November 2017. This was the first Publications Committee to be led by Interim Chair Debbie Baines, who welcomed the other new members of the Committee: Sue Deuchars (Interim Chair of Meetings Committee), Frank Sengpiel (Honorary Treasurer) and Federico Formenti (Trustee).

The Editors-in-Chief of The Journal of Physiology and Experimental Physiology updated the Committee about their continuing strategic plans for the journals.

Kim Barrett, Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Physiology, has been working to increase the number of non-traditional physiology papers submitted to The Journal of Physiology, particularly those that use non-mammalian animal models. She also outlined the steps The Journal has taken to encourage submissions from currently underrepresented areas of physiology. Also, the Editorial Board has been rationalised to ensure a more equal workload for the Reviewing Editors.

Mike Tipton, Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Physiology, reported strong growth, including increases in both submissions and full-text downloads in 2017 compared with 2016.

Tom Kleyman has been recruited as the new Editor-in-Chief of Physiological Reports, from the beginning of 2018.

Nominations Committee

The Nominations Committee met to review the candidates for the three Honorary Officer positions (President-Elect, Chair of Meetings Committee, and Chair of Publications Committee) and the External Trustee position. Results will be ratified by Council and where required put to the member vote. The outcomes will be announced at the 2018 Annual General Meeting (AGM).

Affiliate Working Group

Following a very successful early career conference, Future Physiology, last December, the Affiliate Working Group (AWG) met in London to discuss their forthcoming plans.

The main agenda item was a revision to the groups’ terms of reference, including how the Chair is appointed. All members were agreed that the new Chair should be selected from the current members of the group, and that the new Chair would also serve as the Affiliate representative to Council. Current members will be invited to express an interest in becoming the new AWG Chair, and in the event of more than one expression of interest it will be opened up to an online Affiliate Member vote.

The group also discussed the Early Career Physiologists’ Symposium taking place ahead of Europhysiology in September. Planning is in progress, and the event is sure to be a great opportunity for members to present their research.

If you have any ideas or suggestions for ways the group should be supporting Affiliate Members and early career researchers, or would like to express an interest in joining the group, please get in touch. You can provide ideas by getting in touch with Jen Brammer, Membership Engagement Manager.