From the EditorThe IFMBE and our sister organisation in medical physics (IOMP) formed an international union (IUPESM) a long time ago. One of the goals of that union has been to gain full membership in the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU). From early on, the IUPESM was given a status as an associate member and a lot of effort has been put into changing that into full membership. The main reason for pushing this has been that through the ICSU, medical physics and medical and biological engineering will then receive global recognition as genuine sciences. The current President of the IUPESM, Prof. Keith Boddy, has made the membership issue a priority and some progress has been made. The IUPESM has been invited to take part in the World Science Conference that UNESCO and ICSU organised in Budapest this summer. IUPESM has also submitted a detailed application at the request of the ICSU Secretariat which will be discussed with ICSU representatives and later this year by ICSU. It is, however, far too premature to assume that a full membership is in the pipeline. Time will tell whether we are to be successful. This issue carries the first story describing the activities of a biomedical engineering institution. Prof. Dr. Gunther Rau made this initiative which was most welcome. I hope that IFMBE News can continue with these stories and thereby contribute to the spreading of information of BME facilities. You are all invited to submit these stories. In spite of efforts through email and other channels it continues to be difficult to obtain news material from our member societies. My approach is to identify correspondents from each society. These will be my access points to information. Out of our nearly 50 societies only 12 have so far responded to this request to appoint a correspondent. I shall have to continue with my efforts. However, if anyone of you feels that he or she can and wants to contribute, please contact me. Niilo Saranummi Email: niilo.saranummi@vt.fi | ||