Progress report

EAMBES

European Alliance of Medical and Biological Engineering & Sciences

This progress report is written after the meeting of the ProTem group in Warsaw, April 27-28th 2002.

Web site

Prof. Enrique Gomez has presented the just finished, first "beta" version of the EAMBES web site and the logo of the EAMBES with suggestions and comments provided during the last ProTem group meeting in Amsterdam included.

Having the web site available allows the biomedical engineering community to be informed on the work and progress of the ProTem group and also provides a channel for communication and contacting the Group.

Some sections will be empty ("under construction") till the fulfilment of the tasks according to the schedule.

The "public" version of the web site on the web address www.eambes.org will be available by soon. The IFMBE members will be informed on the opening date through their Society Secretaries.

EAMBES Statutes

The majority of the ProTeam group meeting was devoted to a discussion of the draft of the Constitution and Bylaws of the EAMBES. The main effort was to fine-tune the proposal of the Statutes so that all anticipated membership categories obtain adequate representation in the new organisation while, at the same time, keeping the decision-making procedure efficient and uncomplicated.

The work will be continued off-line. The opinion of the members of the ProTem group is that the draft of the Statutes prepared in Warsaw is very close to the final version that is to be forwarded to the European Societies that endorsed formation of EAMBES for comments and critiques. We expect to have the draft of the Constitution and Bylaws finished before the NBC'02 in Reykjavik.

As proposed in the EAMBES schedule, the organisations that have endorsed the formation of EAMBES will be asked to respond within three months. If the responses are not too critical, i.e. major changes are not required, then the intention is to formally vote on the revised version with a deadline for receiving votes at the end of November, in time to be able to announce in Vienna in connection of the 2nd EMBEC conference that the European IFMBE-affiliated societies endorse the Statutes of EAMBES.

EAMBES Membership

EAMBES should be an inclusive organisation, i.e. an organisation that articulates the interests of the whole European BMES community.

The Membership Committee of the ProTem group must engage into a dialogue with the following European organisations:

• European national medical and biological engineering and sciences societies affiliated to the IFMBE
• European transnational and national societies with interest and activities in biomedical engineering or some areas of biomedical engineering
• academic programmes and/or institutions,
• industry and
• fellows.

Members of the ProTem group, secretaries of the national and transnational IFMBE affiliated societies and other members of the European MBE community should make the first contacts with possible EAMBES member organisations and forward the information to the Membership Committee Chair, Prof. Marcello Bracale (bracale@diesun.die.unina.it).

1st MBE Forum in Vienna

After its final formation, the EAMBES should organise an annual event in the format of a symposium or forum to discuss the role and participation of biomedical engineering in European policymaking on issues that touch "our interests" (as listed in the EAMBES objectives). The participants to these events should be recognised leaders in the biomedical engineering field and the other "stakeholders" at European and national level influencing or participating in the decision-making processes.

Occasionally these events could be organised within a major European biomedical engineering conference, such as EMBEC on issues that focus more on the European biomedical engineering community itself.

The 1st MBES Forum "Role of MBES in Europe" will be organised during the 2nd EMBEC'02 in December in Vienna as a part of the EMBEC program.

Organisations and persons interested in taking part at the Forum are invited to contact Prof. N. Saranummi (niilo.saranummi@vtt.fi), the chair of the ProTem Group.

CHART proposal

The CHART proposal (Cartography of biomedical engineering in Europe), submitted to EU within the programme "Quality of Life and Management of Living Resources", has been recently evaluated by the independent experts of the European Commission. The proposal got an overall grade of 4,85 (out of 5 as the maximal grade).

Accreditation & Education

In order to have good visibility of EAMBES at the Vienna conference, the EAMBES WG on accreditation and education will organise a track on education and accreditation.

Nearly all European IFMBE affiliated Societies have sent their status report on biomedical engineering to Prof. J. Nagel, the chair of the WG. The book with the reports will be edited by Prof. Nagel and it is expected to be available till the 2nd EMBEC.