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Jahresbericht 2002 für
LS2 (Life Sciences Switzerland): LS2 (Life Sciences Switzerland) - vormals USGEB
Präsident/Präsidentin: Sandro Rusconi
Von: Sandro Rusconi, sandro.rusconi@unifr.ch
Tagungen / Exkursionen / Kurse
Annual meeting 2002 Lugano: a success The Lugano meeting was the first that marked the `back to the roots` style (spring time). It was extremely well attended considering the remote location that required double overnight stay (over 400 documented participants). It was excellently organised by the society ASIRB (Association for Biomedical Research of the Italian Switzerland) who fully complied to the newly re-discovered rules and assembled a truly interesting scientific program. The financial balance was positive and the central USGEB share was transferred to the young investigators fund (compte `jeunes chercheurs`) which is destined to support travel and meeting expenses of junior members. The USGEB president has decided to request an annual report concerning the utilisation of the share that remains in the hands of this and future local organising committees, to ensure that this money will also be used in conformity to the USGEB statutes. Sponsored meetings/events The following events have been sponsored: `Tage der Genforschung` (4000 Fr); `Competition de travaux par projets sur la biotechnologie` (F Bieri, 3000) `Genetics Workshop Le diablerets` (P Schaer, 1000 Fr); `Arolla workshop` (D Picard, 1000), `ABC Kassetten Proteine und deren Bedeutung in epithelialer physiologie` (B Stieger, 2000). Other meetings that requested deficit guarantee did not use the requested amount: example `Model systems to study human diseases` (P Linder). The `Tage der Genforschung and the event organised by Dr F. Bieri belong to the category of `public opinion /public education` and they must be understood as part of the dialogue that our union has initiated several years ago. The other meetings are specialised events where we verified that the training purpose and advantage for junior attendees was ensured before committing to any kind of sponsoring. Three meeting sponsoring applications were still awaiting such clarifications at the end of 2002.
Publikationen
Bulletins: towards a reduction of the printed versions? The traditional trimester publication was maintained. The job posting was streamlined and the bulletin appeared in PDF format also on our WEB site. The advantages of the electronic publications made the central committee wonder whether the paper versions could/should be reduced. This policy could be important in these times of financial restrictions, specially if thinking that printing and shipping costs of each issue are currently over 5000 Sfr. An experimental reduction of the printed bulletin issues will be proposed for 2003.
öffentlichkeitsarbeit
Web site www.usgeb.unibe.ch on the rise The original web site had an average of 5 visitors per week in March 2002. The pages were restructured by including many interesting features: list of orphan members, list of forthcoming meetings, announcements, job-posting, bulletin on line, public opinion pages, correct links to societies. The number of visitors increased progressively to reach about 200 visitors/week. The most visited pages are the job offer lists. Peaks of visits (over 400/week) were experienced when the online bulletin was advertised by bulk e-mail. The WEB site may become the most important information vehicle, and further developments of this instrument are planned, such a restricted search of the members addresses, password linked access to confidential documents , a discussion forum, etc...
Nachwuchsförderung
Sponsored junior travel The following applications were granted: K Köhler (1400); K Björklöf (1400); D Chevalier (700); Ch. Gee (1400); O Dorchies (1200); D. Ott (1400); D. Leone (1400); M Leu (950). Seven out of eight of the attended meetings were in the USA. No application had to be refused on formal lack of eligibility.
Administrative Tätigkeit (nur für Organe der SANW)
March 2002, change of presidium The delegates assembly of March 6 2002, accepted the new president S. Rusconi proposed by D Monard. The executive committee was formed on the campus Fribourg and consists of: S Ruscoini (president, UNIFR), Urs Albrecht (vice president, UNIFR), Members: Eric Rouiller (UNIFR), Beat Schwaller (UNIFR), Felix Mauch (UNIFR), Patrizia Wannier (UNIFR), H. Uwe Simon (UNIBE). The committee was called into several decisions by e-mail and met two times in corpore. Real or fictitious size of the Union? At the end of 2001 there were 2585 reported members. The address database was refreshed and restructured after the change of presidium. In particular a big effort was dedicated in retrieving te many missing e-mail connections. By june 2002, about 800 email connections were still missing and we hired two young assistants for one week each, who tried to painstakingly retrace those people by phone, mail, contact of labs, WEBmasters, departments etc. Many addresses turned out to be outdated, counted double or somehow nonvalid. All in all, 300 remained without validation. Those results were communicated to the corresponding societies. As of end 2002 the corrected size of the Union was of 2325 people. Update of members list requires more cooperation ! Not all member societies are very active in maintaining their address database, and we estimate that the central USGEB secretariate has peobably the best update, even if this is not its principal job. But our disappointment is specially concerning the new members. In fact, the USGEB secretariate and the president were contacted very often by young candidate members who had apparently submitted an application for membership several months before but did never receive any confirmation or information from the corresponding society. The USGEB president feels that this way of handling candidate members is inappropriate and asks the responsible persons of all member societies to adhere to some simple but common-sense and good politedness rules: a) write down the data of the applicants into their database as soon as possible b) reply to the applicant by e-mail, confirming the receival of the application and their status as `candidate member, and by listing the filed data for occasional corrections c) send a copy of this e-mail correspondence to the USGEB secretariate with a clear `subject line` such that we can keep track of candidate members who deserve to receive also the info from the central USGEB. Ideally, no more than two weeks should pass between the receival of an application and such reply. the USGEB president hopes that the societies will cooperate towards reaching this objective in the future. Replacement of EFBS members (eidgenoessiche Fachkommission fuer biologische Sicherheit): A never-ending story. In April the former and new president sent a letter to the BUWAL and to the concerned federal ministers, where they justified their refusal of proposing substitute candidate members for the EFBS to replace the demissioning people. The main justification was that the work of this EFBS committee seems to be pointless if the BUWAL director can short circuit its advice as it did in 2001. An elaborated answer that did not specifically address our questions came in late summer and was ignored, because it was not signed by Mr Leuenberger, but it was just an interpretative citation of some of his statements by one of his aides. In late fall 2002 the USGEB president was urged to submit some candidate names on a verbal promise that the future weight of the EFBS would be reassessed and become more relevant. The candidates had to be contacted by phone (four days time including a weekend) . The following names were finally proposed: Claude Bron, Stefan Catsicas, Beatrice Lanzrein, Patrick Linder. As of today, we still have not heard the decisions concerning the EFBS composition. Replacement of USGEB delegate for Louis Jeantet scientific advisory board The mandate of R Zinkernagel expires at the end of 2003. For 2004-2007 the USGEB president has identified Timothy Richmond (ETHZ) as representative of the USGEB in that comitee