News
President's Report 2006
During the past four years, the IFSM Executive Committee has been active, and especially in the period leading up to this Congress. I attended meetings on behalf of IFSM, including all three Regional meetings—EMS in Antwerp, CIASEM in Cuba and CAPSM in Kanazawa. I met with the MSA Council twice. The Vice President and General Secretary, between them, attended all recent MSA annual meetings and the EMS Regional Meeting, and members of the Executive have attended numerous meetings. I might mention here that there has been virtually no call upon IFSM funds for these activities.
IFSM takes very seriously its responsibility of overseeing the IMCs, and so Professors Howie and Carter and I have met on numerous (at least 5) occasions with the IMC-16 organisers to discuss arrangements and details. Professor Carter visited Sapporo to review the site, as did Dr Hax (the IFSM Trade Member on the Executive Committee). I believe that the strong role that IFSM plays in overseeing these IMC and Regional meetings is important to the scientific community. In the case of the EMS regional meeting, IFSM played a strong supporting role in the move from the original plan to hold it in Israel, to the decision to hold it in Antwerp. We are all very grateful to our Antwerp colleagues for their willingness to take over the organisation of that meeting at short notice.
During my term as President (and before that as General Secretary) I took a particular interest in strengthening the support that IFSM gives to young scientists throughout the world. There is a history to this role for IFSM. After the International Congress in Seattle, there were profits that the organisers set aside towards IFSM-IMC scholarships for young scientists for the next IMC in Cancun. This was repeated for the meetings in Paris, in Durban and in Sapporo. So a 20-year tradition has been established that there are IFSM scholars with travel and registration support at each IMC. Because of the generosity of the IMC-16 bid, there are 100 overseas scholars and some 45 Japanese scholars, receiving scholarships worth over $1000 each, at this meeting. As you know, I decided that we should run a one-day School for these scholars, and on the Saturday before IMC-16 they all arrived in the evening, and then we held a one-day School, with an excellent lunch provided by FEI, on the Sunday. It was by all accounts a resounding success. I hope that this School and these scholarships will become a traditional part of future IMCs. It is a legacy that I should like to leave.
Another area of particular concern to me was the Trade Exhibition. In years past, the Trade had many complaints about whether they were treated reasonably. The Trade Exhibition is very important to all of us, not only for the budget but also for our scientific interest. So last year the General Assembly changed the IFSM Constitution, so that there is now a Trade Member of the IFSM Executive, and the Trade is an IFSM member, just like a member country, with 3 voting representatives. Its dues are relatively large compared to those of other members. I have particularly to thank Dr Werner Hax and Paul Fischione for their efforts in helping develop this arrangement. I think the Trade now has a challenge to make this work effectively. The challenge for the Trade, like for any country, is to get themselves talking together so that they can make their representation effective. I know that they have started efforts in this area at this meeting.
I mentioned the role that IFSM plays in overseeing the planning for IMCs. In the past few years the IFSM Executive tried to ensure that the bids were better documented than they had been in the past. There are now guidelines for what needs to be included in these bids, and the IFSM Executive has, this year, offered to discuss drafts with the bidding members as they are being prepared. The aim of this is to ensure that the General Assembly has the details that it needs to make an informed decision on the site for the next IMC. Sometimes the bidding members find this oversight irritating, but I have no doubt that we have to increase this oversight as the IMCs become more professional. After all, the budgets for these meetings are approaching $2 million, and so pitfalls need to be avoided. The Delegates to the General Assembly need to play their part in this– they need to be informed about the bids, and they need to study them carefully ahead of the Vote. I believe that the incoming IFSM Executive Committee will need to do more to make this process effective.
A further initiative in this period has been the John M Cowley Medal. John was a pioneering electron microscopist and a mentor to many of us. Following his death, Professor David Smith (Arizona), in collaboration with Arizona State University, initiated a memorial fund. They then approached IFSM to take over this fund and the responsibility of managing the award of the Medal. The Executive Committee of IFSM, augmented by an ASU representative, is the Awarding Committee. I have circulated a notice about how future nominations are to be made, and this will soon be on the website. The award is a Medal plus $1000. It is wonderful that the first John M Cowley Medallist is Sumio Iijima.
As I step down at the end of this year, after 8 years as General Secretary and 4 as President, I would like to say a word about IFSM. Many people ask “what does IFSM do?” In my view, it does a great amount of work, especially in fostering interaction between the international community of scientists, promoting the smooth running of Conferences and strengthening microscopy as an interdisciplinary activity. I hope that in some of its recent initiatives, such as providing scholarships to young scientists and bringing the Trade more closely into the IFSM fold, its activities will be increasingly appreciated. But much of its activities necessarily will remain in the background, and so they should.
Finally I want to thank the IFSM Executive Committee for their work over the past years, and particularly over recent months when they have had considerable work to do in choosing scholarship winners, reading briefing papers and working on the Cowley Medal. I particularly thank Barry Carter for his hard work as General Secretary, and Archie Howie for his support as Vice President and for his wise counsel.
David Cockayne
September 2006