- Email: [email protected]
FENS 2000 – Federation of European Neuroscience Societies millennium meeting
PERSPECTIVES FENS 2000 – Federation of European Neuroscience Societies millennium meeting Michael G. Stewart In two articles by Wolf Singer, published in TINS in 1994 and 1997, brief analyses were presented of the problems faced by the European neuroscience community in its attempt to provide a cohesive response to meet the challenge of the proclamation of the ‘Decade of the Brain’. One of the most-important decisions was to promote a forum for European neuroscience that, among other activities, would hold bi-annual meetings, alternating with meetings of partner European neuroscience societies in the intervening year. The first fruit of this was the enormously successful meeting held in Berlin in June 1998. The next meeting, the FENS millennium meeting, will be held in Brighton, UK (24–28 June 2000). Trends Neurosci. (1999) 22, 427–428
T
HE Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) grew out of the old European Neuroscience Association (ENA), an organization that served the European neuroscience community well for many years and founded the very successful European Journal of Neuroscience. However, as Wolf Singer argued successfully in two previous articles1,2, a new forum was needed that was accessible to all neuroscientists within Europe, and also from other continents. FENS would provide a major cohesive interdisciplinary forum for European neuroscientists to present their research and to exploit the European job market, and would have a greater impact in terms of achieving grant funding from the EC and elsewhere, in part by facilitating a forum to help establish networks. In order to help achieve these aims, FENS has been organized through a committee (Box 1) of all the member societies (the current President of this committee is Willem Gispen of the Rudolf Magnus Institute, Utrecht, The Netherlands), which comprises representatives of each member national society plus representatives of what have been termed by Wolf Singer as the European oligo-disciplinary societies – such as the European Brain and Behaviour Society (EBBS). There is also an executive committee that meets more regularly to coordinate activities (see also Box 1). The idea that the European neuroscience meetings should become a forum arose in 1995 when the ENA/EBBS meeting in Amsterdam was organized for the first time in affiliation with the oligodisciplinary societies, as a prelude to the FENS Forum meetings as they are now called. To make this change clear to the scientific community, this meeting was called The Meeting of European Neuroscience: Towards a New Forum. This meeting was the first in which the ENA installed an independent Programme Committee with members from all over Europe, in order to ensure the best possible selection of symposia and plenary lectures. However, further changes occurred in the evolution of the Forum meetings with the decision that they should occur only biannually. All national neuroscience societies agreed to cancel their own annual meetings in the year of the FENS Forum, in order to maximize the attendance at what would be the only major European neuroscience meeting in that particular year. For this 0166-2236/99/$ – see front matter © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
reason, no ENA or FENS meeting was organized in 1997, thus starting the sequence of biannual meetings. The first meeting under the Federation banner was held in Berlin in June 1998, with Helmut Kettenman of the MDC Berlin as the local organizing chair and Barry Everitt of Cambridge as programme chair. Berlin proved to be the most well-attended European neuroscience meeting, with over 4000 delegates from not just Europe but the rest of the world. Indeed, so great was the success of the meeting, far exceeding the initial estimates of 3000 delegates, that a second poster site, a marquee sponsored by Nature Neuroscience, had to be erected in the hotel grounds. In 2000, the national neuroscience societies in Europe will once again defer their meetings in favour of the FENS meeting, attractively billed as the FENS millennium meeting. The success of Berlin and the fact that the number of delegates likely to attend the subsequent meeting would be 4000 or more, prompted a search for a suitable location for the second FENS meeting. Invitations to submit proposals to host the millennium meeting were accepted by four member societies and these were considered at an ENA council meeting in Berlin in April 1998. Among the key factors to be considered in the final choice of the location were financial planning, conference-site suitability, convenience of travel, the range of accomodation of various prices (from budget to five-star) and the cultural environment. Four excellent, well-presented bids were considered, with Brighton being chosen as the millennium meeting site. Brighton has many features which will ensure its success as a location for FENS 2000. Most importantly, the main conference location – The Brighton Conference Centre (located on the seafront) – is one of the largest in the UK. Together with the adjacent Metropole Hotel it can easily accommodate up to 6000 delegates, and therefore meets the necessity to plan for an expansion on the numbers of delegates who attended the Berlin meeting. The space for exhibits and posters is especially abundant, with shades of the generous facilities available at the Society for Neuroscience meetings. Brighton is also intended to be used as a venue for a variety of member societies to hold their annual general meetings, for journal editorial-board meetings and for sessions PII: S0166-2236(99)01484-8
TINS Vol. 22, No. 10, 1999
Michael G. Stewart is at the Dept of Biological Sciences, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK MK7 6AA.
427
PERSPECTIVES
M.G. Stewart – FENS 2000
Box 1. Representatives and member societies of the FENS council National associations Armenian Neuroscience Society – V. Sargsyan Belgian Society for Neuroscience – Eric de Schutter Danish Society of Neuroscience – Frank Sams-Dodd Societie des Neurosciences – M. Harmon German Neuroscience Society – Ulf Eysel Hellenic Society for Neuroscience – Athanasios Dinopoulos Israel Society for Neuroscience – Michael J. Gutnick Dutch Neurofederation – A.R. Cools Austrian Neuroscience Society – Anton Hermann Czech Neuroscience Society – Josef Syka Brain Research Society of Finland – Risto Kauppinen Georgian Neuroscience Association – M. Tsagareli British Neuroscience Association – Colin Blakemore Hungarian Neuroscience Association – M. Palkovits Societa Italiana di Neuroscience – Jacopo Meldolesi Norwegian Neuroscience Society – Terje Sagvolden Polish Neuroscience Society – Mal⁄ gorzata Kossut Sociedad Espanola de Neurosciencisa – Luis Puelles Swiss Neuroscience Society – Pierre Magistretti Sociedad Portugesa de Neurociencia – Joaquim Ribeiro
run by the many European networks that have formed under the EC framework programmes, together with others such as the Human Frontier Science Program. Facilities will be made available for such meetings on request. In addition, a series of public lectures and debates is planned, and major press facilities will be used to publicize topical issues and release details of any new developments to the general public. The DANA Alliance will play a prominent role in this regard. Several new features are planned in the organization of FENS 2000. The local organizing committee consists not only of members from the host organizing Society, the British Neuroscience Association (BNA), but also members of the many other UK societies with strong interests in neuroscience research. As for earlier meetings, a programme committee was elected from the member European societies, this time with Joel Bockaert (Montpellier, France) as chairman (Box 2).
Box 2. Programme committee, FENS Brighton 2000 Joel Bockaert (Montpellier, France) – Chairman programme committee Marianne Amalric (Marseilles, France) – Neurology Barry Everitt (Cambridge, UK) – Cognitive neuroscience Monica diLuca (Milan, Italy) – Neuropharmacology Wolf Singer (Frankfurt, Germany) – Neurophysiology Michael Stewart (Milton Keynes, UK) – Local organizing chair Steve Hunt (London, UK) – Molecular biology Dai Stephens (Sussex, UK) – Neuropharmacology Giacomo Rizzolatti (Parma, Italy) – Cognitive neuroscience Jose Lopez-Barneo (Seville, Spain) – Neurophysiology Sten Grillner (Stockholm, Sweden) – Neurophysiology Pierre Magistretti (Lausanne, Switzerland) – Molecular neuroscience Phillipe Ascher (Paris, France) – Electrophysiology–physiology Jan Buresˇ (Videnska, Czech Republic) – Behaviour and cognitive neuroscience Ron De Kloet (Leiden, The Netherlands) – Neuroendocrinology Antonio Simeone (Naples, Italy) – Developmental biology
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Swedish Neuroscience Network – Carlos Ibáñez Neuroscience Society of Turkey – Gonul O. Peker Oligo-disciplinary associations IBANGS – Wim Crusio Federation of the European Psychophysiological Society – Risto Näätänen European Behavioural Pharmacol. Soc. – Gaetano di Chiara European Neuroscience Association – Hugo Zwenk European Society for Neurochemistry – Pam Fredman European College of Neuropsychopharmacology – M. Ackenheil European Neuroendocrine Association – Alan Grossman European Brain and Behaviour Society – Susan Sara Executive Committee of FENS President – Willem Gispen Secretary General – Peter ‘Dop’ Bär Treasurer – Helmut Kettenmann President-Elect – Gaetano di Chiara Chair Programme Committee – Joel Bockaert Chair Schools Committee – Sigismund Huck Chair Fellowship Committee – Currently vacant
It is expected that abstract submission and registration will occur electronically via the FENS 2000 Web site (http://www.fens2000.org/), and booking accommodation can be made over a secure Web site connection. It will be possible to submit abstracts 1–2 months before the deadline and have the opportunity to modify them online at any time up to the abstract deadline (31 January 2000) using personal ID codes and user names. Registration fees will be keenly priced and special rates for students will be available, as in Berlin. More importantly, several neuroscience societies have already indicated that they will make bursaries available to their student members, greatly facilitating their ability to attend the meeting. A particular problem that is hoped to be addressed is the need to ensure the participation of Former Soviet Union scientists, because of the funding difficulties in many of those countries. More information about FENS can be found at www.fens.org, which also has a link to the FENS 2000 site (www.fens2000.org). For information from the local organizing committee (Chair, Michael Stewart, Milton Keynes), contact: Rebecca Jones, British Neuroscience Association Conference Office, New Medical School, Ashton Street, Liverpool, UK L69 3GE. Tel: ⫹44 151 794 5449/4943. Fax: ⫹44 151 794 5517. E-mail: [email protected] For information on registration, accommodation, general information contact: Conference Secretariat – Intermarket Tel: ⫹44 1273 325315. Fax: ⫹44 1273 323882. E-mail: [email protected] Request the Call for Abstracts (available September 1999) by e-mailing [email protected] with your full postal address. References 1 Singer, W. (1994) Trends Neurosci. 17, 330–332 2 Singer, W. (1997) Trends Neurosci. 20, 116–118
T
HE Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) grew out of the old European Neuroscience Association (ENA), an organization that served the European neuroscience community well for many years and founded the very successful European Journal of Neuroscience. However, as Wolf Singer argued successfully in two previous articles1,2, a new forum was needed that was accessible to all neuroscientists within Europe, and also from other continents. FENS would provide a major cohesive interdisciplinary forum for European neuroscientists to present their research and to exploit the European job market, and would have a greater impact in terms of achieving grant funding from the EC and elsewhere, in part by facilitating a forum to help establish networks. In order to help achieve these aims, FENS has been organized through a committee (Box 1) of all the member societies (the current President of this committee is Willem Gispen of the Rudolf Magnus Institute, Utrecht, The Netherlands), which comprises representatives of each member national society plus representatives of what have been termed by Wolf Singer as the European oligo-disciplinary societies – such as the European Brain and Behaviour Society (EBBS). There is also an executive committee that meets more regularly to coordinate activities (see also Box 1). The idea that the European neuroscience meetings should become a forum arose in 1995 when the ENA/EBBS meeting in Amsterdam was organized for the first time in affiliation with the oligodisciplinary societies, as a prelude to the FENS Forum meetings as they are now called. To make this change clear to the scientific community, this meeting was called The Meeting of European Neuroscience: Towards a New Forum. This meeting was the first in which the ENA installed an independent Programme Committee with members from all over Europe, in order to ensure the best possible selection of symposia and plenary lectures. However, further changes occurred in the evolution of the Forum meetings with the decision that they should occur only biannually. All national neuroscience societies agreed to cancel their own annual meetings in the year of the FENS Forum, in order to maximize the attendance at what would be the only major European neuroscience meeting in that particular year. For this 0166-2236/99/$ – see front matter © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
reason, no ENA or FENS meeting was organized in 1997, thus starting the sequence of biannual meetings. The first meeting under the Federation banner was held in Berlin in June 1998, with Helmut Kettenman of the MDC Berlin as the local organizing chair and Barry Everitt of Cambridge as programme chair. Berlin proved to be the most well-attended European neuroscience meeting, with over 4000 delegates from not just Europe but the rest of the world. Indeed, so great was the success of the meeting, far exceeding the initial estimates of 3000 delegates, that a second poster site, a marquee sponsored by Nature Neuroscience, had to be erected in the hotel grounds. In 2000, the national neuroscience societies in Europe will once again defer their meetings in favour of the FENS meeting, attractively billed as the FENS millennium meeting. The success of Berlin and the fact that the number of delegates likely to attend the subsequent meeting would be 4000 or more, prompted a search for a suitable location for the second FENS meeting. Invitations to submit proposals to host the millennium meeting were accepted by four member societies and these were considered at an ENA council meeting in Berlin in April 1998. Among the key factors to be considered in the final choice of the location were financial planning, conference-site suitability, convenience of travel, the range of accomodation of various prices (from budget to five-star) and the cultural environment. Four excellent, well-presented bids were considered, with Brighton being chosen as the millennium meeting site. Brighton has many features which will ensure its success as a location for FENS 2000. Most importantly, the main conference location – The Brighton Conference Centre (located on the seafront) – is one of the largest in the UK. Together with the adjacent Metropole Hotel it can easily accommodate up to 6000 delegates, and therefore meets the necessity to plan for an expansion on the numbers of delegates who attended the Berlin meeting. The space for exhibits and posters is especially abundant, with shades of the generous facilities available at the Society for Neuroscience meetings. Brighton is also intended to be used as a venue for a variety of member societies to hold their annual general meetings, for journal editorial-board meetings and for sessions PII: S0166-2236(99)01484-8
TINS Vol. 22, No. 10, 1999
Michael G. Stewart is at the Dept of Biological Sciences, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK MK7 6AA.
427
PERSPECTIVES
M.G. Stewart – FENS 2000
Box 1. Representatives and member societies of the FENS council National associations Armenian Neuroscience Society – V. Sargsyan Belgian Society for Neuroscience – Eric de Schutter Danish Society of Neuroscience – Frank Sams-Dodd Societie des Neurosciences – M. Harmon German Neuroscience Society – Ulf Eysel Hellenic Society for Neuroscience – Athanasios Dinopoulos Israel Society for Neuroscience – Michael J. Gutnick Dutch Neurofederation – A.R. Cools Austrian Neuroscience Society – Anton Hermann Czech Neuroscience Society – Josef Syka Brain Research Society of Finland – Risto Kauppinen Georgian Neuroscience Association – M. Tsagareli British Neuroscience Association – Colin Blakemore Hungarian Neuroscience Association – M. Palkovits Societa Italiana di Neuroscience – Jacopo Meldolesi Norwegian Neuroscience Society – Terje Sagvolden Polish Neuroscience Society – Mal⁄ gorzata Kossut Sociedad Espanola de Neurosciencisa – Luis Puelles Swiss Neuroscience Society – Pierre Magistretti Sociedad Portugesa de Neurociencia – Joaquim Ribeiro
run by the many European networks that have formed under the EC framework programmes, together with others such as the Human Frontier Science Program. Facilities will be made available for such meetings on request. In addition, a series of public lectures and debates is planned, and major press facilities will be used to publicize topical issues and release details of any new developments to the general public. The DANA Alliance will play a prominent role in this regard. Several new features are planned in the organization of FENS 2000. The local organizing committee consists not only of members from the host organizing Society, the British Neuroscience Association (BNA), but also members of the many other UK societies with strong interests in neuroscience research. As for earlier meetings, a programme committee was elected from the member European societies, this time with Joel Bockaert (Montpellier, France) as chairman (Box 2).
Box 2. Programme committee, FENS Brighton 2000 Joel Bockaert (Montpellier, France) – Chairman programme committee Marianne Amalric (Marseilles, France) – Neurology Barry Everitt (Cambridge, UK) – Cognitive neuroscience Monica diLuca (Milan, Italy) – Neuropharmacology Wolf Singer (Frankfurt, Germany) – Neurophysiology Michael Stewart (Milton Keynes, UK) – Local organizing chair Steve Hunt (London, UK) – Molecular biology Dai Stephens (Sussex, UK) – Neuropharmacology Giacomo Rizzolatti (Parma, Italy) – Cognitive neuroscience Jose Lopez-Barneo (Seville, Spain) – Neurophysiology Sten Grillner (Stockholm, Sweden) – Neurophysiology Pierre Magistretti (Lausanne, Switzerland) – Molecular neuroscience Phillipe Ascher (Paris, France) – Electrophysiology–physiology Jan Buresˇ (Videnska, Czech Republic) – Behaviour and cognitive neuroscience Ron De Kloet (Leiden, The Netherlands) – Neuroendocrinology Antonio Simeone (Naples, Italy) – Developmental biology
428
TINS Vol. 22, No. 10, 1999
Swedish Neuroscience Network – Carlos Ibáñez Neuroscience Society of Turkey – Gonul O. Peker Oligo-disciplinary associations IBANGS – Wim Crusio Federation of the European Psychophysiological Society – Risto Näätänen European Behavioural Pharmacol. Soc. – Gaetano di Chiara European Neuroscience Association – Hugo Zwenk European Society for Neurochemistry – Pam Fredman European College of Neuropsychopharmacology – M. Ackenheil European Neuroendocrine Association – Alan Grossman European Brain and Behaviour Society – Susan Sara Executive Committee of FENS President – Willem Gispen Secretary General – Peter ‘Dop’ Bär Treasurer – Helmut Kettenmann President-Elect – Gaetano di Chiara Chair Programme Committee – Joel Bockaert Chair Schools Committee – Sigismund Huck Chair Fellowship Committee – Currently vacant
It is expected that abstract submission and registration will occur electronically via the FENS 2000 Web site (http://www.fens2000.org/), and booking accommodation can be made over a secure Web site connection. It will be possible to submit abstracts 1–2 months before the deadline and have the opportunity to modify them online at any time up to the abstract deadline (31 January 2000) using personal ID codes and user names. Registration fees will be keenly priced and special rates for students will be available, as in Berlin. More importantly, several neuroscience societies have already indicated that they will make bursaries available to their student members, greatly facilitating their ability to attend the meeting. A particular problem that is hoped to be addressed is the need to ensure the participation of Former Soviet Union scientists, because of the funding difficulties in many of those countries. More information about FENS can be found at www.fens.org, which also has a link to the FENS 2000 site (www.fens2000.org). For information from the local organizing committee (Chair, Michael Stewart, Milton Keynes), contact: Rebecca Jones, British Neuroscience Association Conference Office, New Medical School, Ashton Street, Liverpool, UK L69 3GE. Tel: ⫹44 151 794 5449/4943. Fax: ⫹44 151 794 5517. E-mail: [email protected] For information on registration, accommodation, general information contact: Conference Secretariat – Intermarket Tel: ⫹44 1273 325315. Fax: ⫹44 1273 323882. E-mail: [email protected] Request the Call for Abstracts (available September 1999) by e-mailing [email protected] with your full postal address. References 1 Singer, W. (1994) Trends Neurosci. 17, 330–332 2 Singer, W. (1997) Trends Neurosci. 20, 116–118