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EDITORIAL
The 37th IUPS International Congress of Physiological Sciences will be held in Kyoto, Japan from 27th July to 1st August 2009. It is already more than 30 years since the last Congress was held in Asia (New Delhi, 1974) and more than 40 years since the Congress was last held in Japan (Tokyo, 1965). Planning for the 2009 Congress is now well under way. As mentioned in the Official Invitation from the President of the Congress, Professor Yasushi Miyashita, the overall theme for the Kyoto Congress is "Function of Life: Elements and Integration." This should give plenty of scope for presenting, discussing, and integrating much new information from all important branches of the physiological sciences.
In our last IUPS editorial, published in the August 2006 issue of Physiology (2), we provided a list of the first 10 Invited Lecturers who had been selected at the inaugural meeting of the International Scientific Program Committee (ISPC) held in Osaka last year. The membership of the ISPC can also be found in that editorial. The next major stage in the process of generating the scientific program is to select the symposia, which naturally will form a major part of the congress, along with the remainder of the Invited Lectures. The call for symposia proposals was published in February 2007 and can be found on the IUPS website (http://www.iups.org). However, at the time most physiologists will be reading this editorial, we shall be very close to the deadline for making proposals, which is the 18th June, 2007. The format of a congress symposium will be fairly conventional with a duration of 2.5 hours and four to five speakers. At the second meeting of the ISPC, to be held in Japan in December this year, we plan to select 42 symposia representing the most important and exciting areas of contemporary physiological research. This will not be an easy task! Inevitably, there will have to be "edition" of the specific symposia proposals selected. Speaker lists must be developed keeping in mind not only the primary goals of research excellence and ability to speak to a multidisciplinary audience, but of course also gender equity and diversity of speaker nationalities. Given the relatively small number of symposia that can be scheduled during the congress, it may also be necessary to take into account the coverage produced by the Invited Lectures.
The Invited Lectures and the symposia will be the principal events funded by the Congress Organization, but there will also be lectures sponsored by other organizations and symposia specifically sponsored by the Physiological Society of Japan, since the IUPS Congress will also function as the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Physiological Society of Japan. Whole-day symposia—sponsored by various other organizations—are also planned. As always, there will be opportunities for Satellite Symposia before and after the Congress itself. Clearly the 2nd ISPC meeting in December 2007 will be extremely busy!
We hope to be able to announce the major part of the scientific programme (invited lectures and symposia) in January 2008. Proposals for Satellite Symposia should be submitted between February and August 2008. Applications for travel grants for Young Investigators should be submitted in the period October to December 2008. Early registration will start late in autumn 2008, and late registration will continue right up to the Congress.
The 2009 IUPS Congress is without doubt by far the most important scientific meeting being planned by IUPS right now. However, there have recently been and will in the near future be many other events with which IUPS is associated. At the last Executive Committee meeting held in Paris, France in January this year, reports of successful meetings held in October 2006 by FAOPS (Federation of Asian and Oceanic Physiological Societies) in Seoul, Korea and by ALACF (Latin American Association of Physiological Science) in Buenos Aires were received. Registration is now open for the 2007 Annual Meeting of FEPS (Federation of European Physiological Societies), which will be held in Bratislava, Slovakia from the 11th to 14th of September this year and jointly with The Physiological Society (UK and Ireland) and the Slovak Physiological Society (http://www.joint.conference.sav.sk). IUPS will also have a presence at the 2007 IBRO (International Brain Research Organization) Congress, which will be held in Melbourne, Australia from the 12th to 17th of July 2007 (http://www.ibro2007.org).
At the IUPS Executive Committee Meeting in January 2007, we also had to deal with several important domestic matters. Sadly, John Hall—our Treasurer elected at the General Assembly in San Diego in 2005—had given notice that he wished to resign due to heavy pressure of other commitments. John had diligently taken care of the financial affairs of IUPS, but with regret the Executive Committee had no choice but to accept his resignation. The Executive Committee and Council asked Malcolm Gordon, University of California, Los Angeles, who has for many years been a member of the IUPS Council and chairman of IUPS Commission VII (Comparative Physiology: Evolution, Adaptation and Environment), to take up the vacant position as Treasurer and Member of the Executive Committee. Happily, Malcolm accepted this very important and challenging job and is already now functioning as IUPS Treasurer. We also had resignations from the Chairs of the Ethics Committee and Commission VIII (Genomics and Diversity). Following the January Executive Committee meeting, Penny Moody-Corbett (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada) kindly agreed to chair the Ethics Committee, and David Cook (University of Sydney, Australia) took up the position as Chair of Commission VIII.
The IUPS Council meets at the International Congresses and once in the interval between Congresses. Since the last IUPS Congress took place in San Diego in 2005 and the next, as already mentioned in some detail, will take place in Kyoto, Japan in 2009, this year is the natural time for the inter-congress Council Meeting. Traditionally, this Council Meeting is held at the place of the next Congress, and we are therefore convening Council in Kyoto in December this year in conjunction with the ISPC and Executive Committee Meetings. One of the most important issues to be discussed at this Council Meeting is the report from the Long-Range Planning Committee, which was set up following the 2005 San Diego Council [see our first IUPS Editorial published in Physiology in February 2006 (1)]. Following extensive consultations with the physiological community, it is expected that the report will deal with the whole range of challenges facing IUPS in the future. The 2007 Council will receive and debate the report and make recommendations to be dealt with at the 2009 Council and General Assembly in Kyoto. Although the official deadline for comments and advice on IUPS long-range planning has passed a long time ago, anyone wishing to make any further observations or suggestions should do so by writing to the IUPS Executive Secretary, Sue Orsoni (orsoni{at}chups.jussieu.fr).
Finally, we cannot end this report on recent and planned IUPS activities without paying tribute to former IUPS President Knut Schmidt-Nielsen, who sadly passed away on the 24th of January 2007. He was one of the world’s most famous physiologists and served IUPS with the greatest distinction. He was of course also the founding Editor of News in Physiological Sciences ,the precursor of Physiology,and was recognized throughout the world for his original contributions to comparative physiology, in particular, as well as a brilliant writer of several very successful books. Professor Schmidt-Nielsen was a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and Foreign Member of both The Royal Society (UK) and The French Academy of Science. A fund has been established that will allow a lecture in honor of Knut Schmidt-Nielsen to be delivered at IUPS International Congresses. The first such lecture will be delivered in Kyoto in 2009.
References
This article has been cited by other articles:
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  A. Kaneko and O. H. Petersen The International Union of Physiological Sciences IUPS Editorial IV Physiology, December 1, 2007; 22(6): 354 - 354. [Full Text] [PDF]
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