Dear ISB members,
I am writing my last blog as ISB President and am very excited! We have all managed to get through maybe the most unexpected, serious international challenge that has hit us for a long time. During my term, we have not only had a catastrophic, unique pandemic with unbelievable consequences and tragedies. We have also had an unprecedented escalation of information presented that reveals a blatant resistance to scientific facts. These two phenomena have proven a number of extremely important points for us as human beings.
We learnt that the human race is fragile. And that is a good thing. A reality check. Nobody knows whether it really was a contamination involving bats in a market in Wuhan or whether Covid-19 originated somewhere else, but something, apparently minor, started off somewhere and has had an iron grip on the World for a year and a half. But we have managed! We, people, are amazing. We are strong (but not always as strong as we believe), we adapt, we innovate, we find solutions. Who of us knew that we would develop a complete, international, advanced culture of zoom-meetings in a year? Or realise that all the environmentally disastrous travel that we were used to was actually quite often unnecessary? How many of us haven’t opened up completely new aspects of our lives to more intensely appreciate our closer surroundings, our family, friends, nature. The important things.
We are scientists. That is what ISB is. Your strong society is an amazing conglomerate of international experts in our field, of companies that have revolutionised possibilities for biomechanical measurements and importantly students thirsting for knowledge that senior legends in exactly the questions they are exploring can provide illumination for. We need to keep this tradition going, we need to have scientific facts at the centre of what we do. We need the culture of academic integrity to communicate the knowledge we obtain in our research. That is what ISB stands for.
On a more personal note. My pledge as ISB President was an intense drive for internationalisation, which has always been my strength and is an important component in advancing science which I am especially passionate for. Many fledgling international groups had approached me to either help with establishing national societies of biomechanics or invited me as keynote lecturer to promote biomechanics in their conferences. I would never have dreamt that in my two years as ISB President I would not be able to assist in person in any of these processes.
Now we have the most important and exciting event on the ISB calendar coming up in only about a month! ISB2021, originally planned to be held in Stockholm, Sweden, will now be completely digital and I am sure it will set an extremely high standard for large international, digital congresses. If you haven’t checked out the latest information, please visit the homesite: https://isb2021.com/ and register! This is something we all need; we need to see each other, we need the scientific exchange, we need biomechanical stimulation. It will be digital, and it will be good.
Thank you for all the support and enthusiasm from all of you during my Presidency. It has been a fantastic, sometimes unexpected, but always invigorating experience and I am proud of the strength ISB has as an international scientific society. I would like to express a very special thankyou to Joe Hamill for his support not only as my predecessor but throughout my whole life in biomechanics – it has been an honour working with you and I sincerely hope we continue our great personal and scientific relationship. I am thoroughly looking forward to continuing as the ISB Past President and continuing the advancement of ISB together with the new President, Alberto Leardini.
Take care, Toni (ISB President)
