Do we need a European MBE structure?

The 1st European Medical and Biological Engineering Conference (EMBEC) in Vienna is now successfully completed. The initiative came from Helmut Hutten and thanks to his enthusiasm and energy the meeting was a great success (see meeting report elsewhere in this issue). Judging by the number of participants, there seems to be a case for continuing with these conferences.

Thanks to Helmut, we also had a very interesting and stimulating discussion on Saturday afternoon on various possibilities for organizing ourselves on the European territory. This was continued on Sunday afternoon in a meeting of the IFMBE European WG.

Based on Helmut’s initiative and Saturday’s discussion, our President Jean-Pierre Morucci decided to establish an ad-hoc committee to work out a proposal on how the IFMBE representation in Europe should be organised. The committee will work together with the members of the IFMBE European Working Group and the Administrative Council. The intention is also to involve the European National Societies and transnational societies (like ESEM and EFOMP) in these discussions early on.

The members of the ad-hoc committee are:

The committee has started its work and will conduct its meetings using email (virtual meetings). I invite everyone with an interest in this to read the editorial of the November 99 issue of the IFMBE News and to send their comments and suggestions to me by email.

Niilo Saranummi

Email: niilo.saranummi@vtt.fi