Outreach, outreach, outreach.

In the warm afterglow of the magnificent Kyoto Congress, readers of Physiology might well imagine the officers and council of IUPS taking a relaxing break. Certainly, some congratulations are in order. As the documentary videos on the IUPS website show, it was a brilliant event, all the way from the opening by the Crown Prince of Japan, through the often amazing quality of the science presented, then finally to the emotionally moving closing ceremony, where the IUPS flag was passed on to the United Kingdom. So we sent a well deserved congratulatory message to all the members of the Japanese organizing committees and societies involved. Our former President, Akimichi Kaneko, handed the messages out personally at their last organizing committee meeting. They certainly deserve a relaxing break! But, for IUPS, and for the organizers of 2013, this is where the work begins. First, it was necessary to establish the IUPS secretariat at Case Western Reserve University, where Walter Boron, the new Secretary-General, is located. Much of the work during the first months of this year was the transfer of administration from Sue Orsoni in Paris to Leslie Price, the new manager, at Case. This included the integration of secretarial and financial aspects, as recommended by the LongRange Planning Committee. Ole Petersen referred warmly to Sue Orsoni’s highly valued work for IUPS in his December 2009 editorial. I wish to add my personal thanks to Sue, who first started working for IUPS during the organization of the Paris Congress of 1977. Her 35 years of service were recognized with presentations at the General Assembly in Kyoto and by the Executive Committee in May of this year. She has agreed to act as a consultant to IUPS in its outreach project on membership. Outreach is the keyword for this year. During the Closing Ceremony in Kyoto, I said “What on earth does IUPS exist for? We need to give back to you, to the young and upcoming physiologists the conviction that we are creating the environment in which our subject can flourish, and flourish effectively. What we are going to do with regard to the activities of IUPS is to greatly expand the outreach to the community, not only to our fellow physiologists, but also to the general public, and for that reason, we have taken decisions at Council meetings here to see how we can expand our membership.” First of all, let me address outreach to our member societies and adhering bodies. Ideally, IUPS should be the servant of its member societies, operating more like a Federation, with the member societies having a real say in the way in which IUPS is organized and how it develops policy. We are therefore consulting member societies on how they can be given a greater role in IUPS. The proposal developed by the Executive Committee is that the larger member societies should have the right to nominate IUPS Representatives, with smaller societies doing so through their regional organizations. The proposed roles of these Representatives are outlined in detail in the outreach strategy proposal already circulated to societies and available also on the IUPS website. One role of these Representatives would be to form an advisory group from which a proportion of the Nominating Committee should be chosen. This bottom-up approach will provide for the first time a mechanism for members to participate in the selection of future officers and council members. The Representatives would also act as the routine liaison between IUPS and the member societies, having the right to put proposals to the Executive and Council, and in turn communicating IUPS affairs to their societies. I should emphasize that this outreach strategy proposal is a consultation document. We look forward to receiving reactions as we move IUPS governance into the 21st century. The mechanisms that were appropriate in 1953 (when IUPS was founded) were restricted by the slowness of communications and their great cost–remember the days when an international telephone call cost a small fortune? Today, we are all connected by e-mail, Skype, and many other inexpensive forms of communication. There is no reason why we should wait for the quadrennial General Assembly at each Congress to interact effectively together. Moreover, delegates often feel that most decisions had already been made and that the General Assembly acts merely as a rubber stamp. Under the outreach strategy proposal, the General Assembly would still, under the constitution, be the final arbiter for major decisions, such as electing officers and council members, and deciding on bids for future congresses. However, those assemblies could work more effectively on the basis of interactions among the Representatives (many of whom would be delegates) during the years between each Congress. As a result, as delegates to the General Assembly, we would be making decisions to which many had contributed. The second outreach project will follow up on a recommendation of the LongTerm Planning Committee: “The role of IUPS should be a global one. While its congresses, meetings and organisation are naturally dominated by those regions of the world where our science is welldeveloped, they represent only 10 –15% of the world’s population. IUPS has an obligation to the 85–90% in the developing world, the under-developed world and what are called the ‘war zones.’ It should be a world beacon . . . . Ways should be found to increase participation from poor and developing countries.” We are establishing a small team to help the Council member, Saeed Semnanian (Iran), with responsibility for membership, to reach out toward those parts of the world where physiology is not represented in IUPS, and toward societies whose membership of IUPS has lapsed. In my speech at the closing ceremony I said, “It would be good to target to ensure that at least half of those we have lost in recent years are back in the fold by the time of the next Congress, and that at least some of the countries that have never interacted with us come to the next Congress.” In the natural pleasure that we all feel that over 4,000 people came to the Kyoto meeting, we can easily forget that there are many countries from which no one came. Physiological science is just as important to education, research, and advances in medicine in, say, North Korea, Burma, Burundi, Bolivia, Afghanistan, as it is in the U.S. or Japan–in some respects, EDITORIAL Denis Noble PHYSIOLOGY 25: 126–127, 2010; doi:10.1152/physiol.00020.2010