International Society of Biomechanics
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ISB NOW

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In July the ISB Council had our annual meeting in Edmonton, Canada, and many of us were fortunate to stay on for the scientific meeting of ISB Affiliate Society, Canadian Society of Biomechanics (CSB). First, on behalf of ISB, I want to extend my sincere gratitude to the organisers and members of CSB, particularly Lindsey Westover, for making us feel so welcome, and providing space for our Council meeting. At the Council meeting we heard reports from each of the ISB portfolios and we had a chance to discuss the ISB2027 bids and the ISB survey.

For the ISB2027 bids, you will find the result announced in Felipe’s President-Elect report. As you rush away from this President’s blog to read the result in Felipe’s report, please make sure you come straight back here to read further about the ISB survey and our plans for a ISB strategy. The ISB2027 selection process was an extremely difficult decision. We had 5 outstanding bids, and I truly hope to see the ISB Congress visit those locations in the future. My sincere thanks to the teams who submitted the bids, and to Felipe Carpes for coordinating the bid process.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the survey -  we had 280 responses, which is amazing, thank you! Here in this blog, I will summarise some of our impressions of the survey results and comments, and how we are planning on using these to develop an ISB strategy.

Based on a weighted average score, the activities with highest levels of importance for our members were recognition and awards for students, student travel grants, and special programs to support members from EDC. These activities ranked highest, even though the majority of respondents identified as Senior Researchers from non-EDC countries.

The next most important activities, based on weighted average score, were Equity and Diversity initiatives, recognition of outstanding contributions through awards and lectures, student and postdoc networking and mentoring activities, and the ISB website as a source of information about the society.

This provides us with excellent feedback as to which activities to support as priorities as we develop a strategy. In the first instance we have used these survey responses to draft some strategic goals for ISB and in the coming months we will develop these into a formal strategy to present to members for feedback. One action we have decided to take already is to investigate changes to the website. Given that the website appears to be a preferred source of information for our members, and the society is experiencing increasing challenges and costs associated with editing and maintaining the website on an outdated platform, we will investigate an update. I will provide further updates as they come in, but any changes would be aimed at reducing costs over time, correcting errors, simplifying core tasks for the society, and providing opportunities for ISB and our members to achieve our vision and increase our impact.  

Regarding the questions in the survey about the ISB Congress, again based on a weighted average score, the considerations with highest levels of importance for our members were opportunities for networking, opportunities for social interaction, and freedom and safety of the host country.  The next most important considerations were the line-up of speakers, diversity in the program, maintaining low registration cost, and having a variety of accommodation options. We have provided this feedback to the upcoming conference organisers, and we will make sure this feedback is considered in the ISB strategy.

Once again, I thank everyone who took the time to complete the survey, and invite you to contact me or one of our Council members if you have any further comments. Now the work on the strategy document begins!

Please see the full results of the survey if you are interested to find out more details such as where the responses came from (career stage, regions etc) or any of the comments.

 

Elizabeth Clarke

ISB President 

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