1st EAMBES Council Meeting

Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts, Brussels
October 17-18, 2003

The Belgian .BME society invited the EAMBES Council to meet at the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts in Brussels during the Belgian BME days. This gave the President of the interim board, Niilo Saranummi, an excellent opportunity to present the new European Alliance to the members of the Belgian society.

The matters at the agenda of the council meeting were:

  • Status of the registration of the Alliance
  • Membership applications
  • VDE offer for secretariat support to the Alliance
  • Elections of officers and the council
  • Planning of the next meetings of the Council
  • Action and business plan for the Alliance
  • Integration of students into the activities of the Alliance

Registration

The Alliance is to be registered in Belgium as an international not for profit association. It means that the Alliance has to have an address in Belgium that can be in communication with the Belgium Ministry of Justice as requested by the registration procedure. There is no requirement for the Secretariat to be located inside Belgium nor that any Belgian citizen has to be on the Executive Board or Council. After it is filed for registration at the Belgium Ministry of Justice the process is expected to take couple of months.

The Alliance has to pay VAT and it has to have simple bookkeeping by the treasurer since it is considered a "small" association (less than 5 employees and less than 1MEuro of income). The Alliance will be able to sign contracts after it has filed for registration. The filing request has to be accompanied by the statutes of the Alliance in either French or Flemish. The translation into Flemish will be done by Jos vander Sloten and Dick Slaaf.

Membership Application

The Executive Board with the help of VDE has written a flyer explaining the aims and goals of the Alliance. It will be downloadable from the Alliance web site (www.eambes.org) and available from the Secretary-General. Additionally, membership application forms for societies and for academic programs have been prepared, also to be downloadable from the Alliance web site soon. These documents will be sent out together with an invitation letter to potential member organisations in Europe. The membership applications will be sent out as soon as the Alliance has filed for registration. It is also necessary to get signed application forms; therefore Internet application may be informative only at this stage.

VDE Support

VDE has made an offer of free secretarial services to the Alliance until the end of 2005. As part of this they have assisted us in getting the flyer edited and printed. They also have offered web and communication services, including meeting rooms. The offer was tabled and will be discussed in the next Council meeting.

Elections of the Regular Officers and Council

The term of office of the officers and the council members shall follow the financial year, i.e. it will be from e January 1st of the current year to December 31st of the year in which the terms of office end. This means that the elected interim officers and council members will all serve until end of 2004. It also means that elections to replace these will have to take place in 2004.

The procedure to achieve this was discussed and is the following: At the next meeting of the Interim Council of the Alliance it will appoint a Nominating Committee which shall prepare the nominations for the elections of the Executive Board of the Alliance in the meeting in Ischia, in connection with the MEDICON 2004 conference. Nominations for the offices will be accepted from the EAMBES member organisations until a date very close to the meeting. Similarly, in Ischia the General Assemblies of both Divisions shall appoint their Nominating Committees with elections scheduled to take place in late October or early November 2004. It was noted that individuals serving in the interim board and council are eligible to be nominated in all three elections.

The reason for this two-phase election procedure is to allow maximum time for organisations to apply for membership in EAMBES and thereafter to nominate candidates.

Meetings of the Council in 2004

The next meeting of the Council was at the invitation of our Belgian colleagues agreed to be at the Academy in Brussels on Friday, February 20, 2004, at 9.00. The following council meeting is planned for either Friday, July 30 or Saturday, July 31, 2004 at the venue of the MEDICON 2004 conference in Ischia, Italy. The exact date is to be announced in due course.

Actions and business plan for the Alliance

In Ischia, three symposia will be organised, one covering the accreditation of the BME programs, the other covering the harmonisation of the European education area and the third covering the matters of health technology market requirements for BME products. Additionally, a plenary session is proposed to summarise the results of these workshops.

Additionally, our EU-funded project CHART will organise a workshop in Ischia. The web site for charting European BME resources is nearly finished and it is expected that an invitation to enter the data will be sent out in the end of November.

At the meeting in Brussels, in order to work out detailed specifications for the actions and the business plan of the Alliance, the Council divided into three working groups: Education, Training and Accreditation; Research and Innovation, and Health Technology. Each group worked on proposals and the outcome was discussed at the Council meeting on Saturday. Proposals for actions shall be prepared in writing and published at the Alliance web site (www.eambes.org)

Integration of Students into the Activities of the Alliance

Integration of present students into the activities of the Alliance is of great importance since they are its future members. The Alliance shall encourage the societies to establish their student branches. Students are (in general) recognised by the EU as partners in the Bologna process. The societies should advice and assist students in developing research and training networks and in attending conferences and other scientific events. With the process of European integration, it is to be expected that student mobility will increase in numbers, i.e. a large quantitative change has to be expected. Students should be prepared for research and work on future emerging technologies.