EAMBES completes its first year of activity

www.eambes.org

The first year of EAMBES (actually one and half years) has focused on getting EAMBES registered under Belgian law, recruiting the Founding Members, carrying out the first proper elections for officers and council members for 2005, and on launching the activities included in the mission and objectives of EAMBES.

What will EAMBES do?

EAMBES promotes MBES in the creation of the European Higher Education Area, the creation of the European Research and Innovation Area, and the use of health technology in biology, medicine and healthcare.

Structure and dues of EAMBES

The European Alliance for Medical and Biological Engineering was inaugurated in Frankfurt, Germany, June 14-15, 2003. Its membership at the end of 2004 comprised 24 societies of which four are transnational societies and 26 academic MBES programs. EAMBES is registered since mid-2004 as an "International non-profit Association according to Belgian Law, IVZW". Our definition of Europe is the one used by WHO.

EAMBES was created on two principles:

• EAMBES will not compete with existing societies in Europe, and
• EAMBES adds value in the European scene.

The expectation is that working together in Europe as one MBES community will ultimately benefit us all. The EAMBES structure is based on multiple categories of membership in order to accommodate all needs. Initially a Division for Societies and a Division for Academic Programs and Research Institutes were created. The Division for Fellows will be created in 2005.

The governance structure comprises an Executive Board that runs the Alliance, a General Council as the governing body of the Alliance and the Divisions that each elect their representatives to the General Council. The term of the President is only one year. But the president first serves as president-elect and, after her/his term, as past-president, she/he will be intimately involved with the running of the Alliance for three years. The term of the Secretary-General, Treasurer and General Council members is two years.

The dues for members have been set as follows:

• Societies 2 Euro / member
• Academic Programs & Research Institutions 200 Euro

In addition the dues for members from non-EU member countries will be proportioned based on the ratio of their GDP / capita over the EU 15 average.

EAMBES Statutes

The statutes that were approved in the inauguration meeting have been reorganised into a Constitution that has been approved by the Belgian Ministry of Justice as part of the registration process. The remaining parts of the statutes are called Bylaws and they provide more detail to the general articles of the constitution and all governance material for the divisions. A draft of the Bylaws was discussed in the last General Council meeting in Eindhoven, December 16, 2005. A formal email ballot on its acceptance will be organised in early 2005. Please note that no changes have been made to the contents of the statutes that were approved in Frankfurt in 2003. The material has only been reorganised to comply with the requirements of Belgian law.

Division of Fellows

The Eindhoven meeting also discussed the setting up of the Division of Fellows and agreed on the principles. Based on that a search committee will be appointed by the incoming President (Jos Spaan) to propose 20 persons that together with the search committee members will form the founding fellows.

EAMBES General Council and Officers 2005

In late 2004 the General Council members elected the Executive Board members to replace the interim board elected in Frankfurt. The voting was very tight and the response from the Council very good. Similarly the two divisions elected their officers and representatives to the General Council. The resulting list of elected persons is shown below.

EAMBES membership

All members accepted by the end of 2004 will be known as Founding Members of EAMBES. The list of Founding Members is going to be published in one of the next Issues of the News.

The Eindhoven meeting discussed an action plan to continue recruiting members to both divisions. A new membership campaign will be launched in early 2005. Earlier in 2004 the General Council meeting decided in Ischia that no membership dues will be invoiced in 2004. In 2005 dues will be invoiced. EAMBES will be applying for membership in IFMBE in 2005. Several national MBES societies have expressed a concern that they do not want to pay twice for the right to be a member of IFMBE. A solution to the "double payment issue" has been sought. The proposal that was presented in Eindhoven is the following: EAMBES membership dues to IFMBE will be based on the number of members in those EAMBES member societies that are not affiliated with IFMBE. Consequently there will be no double payment.

Inputs to FP7

The European Commission has invited comments and proposals to the setting of the next Framework R&D Program. Having an influence on the Framework programs was one of the main motivations in setting up EAMBES. The Eindhoven meeting discussed this at length and decided that EAMBES should put forward an integrated MBES program proposal and created a small working group to take this forward. The proposal is titled "Engineering for Health Platform" and was submitted by the end of 2004. The new Executive Board will follow this up in 2005.

Position Paper on MBES

Maria Siebes has been leading a small working group with the assignment to produce a position paper on MBES that EAMBES can use in its activities. A draft was discussed in Eindhoven and based on the comments received the paper will be finalised in early 2005.

ERA-NET

Christian Roux has the lead in this initiative. The aim is to apply for funding under the ERA-NET scheme for national research funding agencies in the MBES sector to coordinate their activities. The proposal has to be submitted by March 2, 2005. Several national funding agencies have agreed to join this proposal.

BIOMEDEA - MBES Education

This activity is reported separately in more detail in this newsletter.

Niilo Saranummi
Past-President, EAMBES
Email: niilo.saranummi@vtt.fi