Minutes for the Second Board Meeting of the ESCS
12 July 2000, 19.30-22.30, Imperial College in London
Present: Kim Andersen, Mike Davies, Gyóra Dormin (meeting organiser), Arpád Furka, Ferenc Darvas, Hubert Gstach, Günther Jung, Rob Liskamp, Mark Bradley, Paolo Rovero (sup), Dolors Fernández, Libuse Jaroskora (sup), Enrique Pérez-Paya, Gudrun Walter (Wiley-VCH)
Elected members were:
Country Academic Industry Austria
Prof. C. Oliver Kappe Karl-Franzen Univ. Graz
Dr. Hubert Gstach Novartis
Belgium
Prof. Johan Van der Eycken University of Gent
Dr. Lieven Meerpoel Janssen Pharmaceutica
Denmark
Prof. Morten Meldal Carlsberg Laboratory
Dr. Kim Andersen Lundbeck A/S
Finland* (Prof. Ari M.P. Koskinen) France* (Prof. Jean Martinez) (André Tartar) Germany
Prof. Günther Jung Univ. Tübingen
Dr. Lutz Veber Morphochem
Holland* Prof. Rob Liskamp ? Hungary
Prof. Arpad Furka Eötvös University
Dr. Ferenc Darvas ComGenex
Italy
Prof. Anna M. Papini Univ. degli Studi di Firenze
Dr. Antonello Pessi IRBM-Merck, Pomezia
Spain
Prof. Enrique Perez-Paya Univ. Valencia
Dr. Dolors Fernandez Almirall Prodesfarma
Switzerland
Dr. Andreas Marzinzik Novartis
U K
Prof. Mark Bradley Soton University
Mike Davis, Argonaut Technologies
*: not yet elected
Referee: Kim Andersen
1. Welcome to the elected Board members (Morten Meldal)
2. Comments to Statutes of the 1999 meeting
It was emphasised that it is important to finalise and approve the statutes fast. Morten Meldal distributes the statutes to all board members as fast as possible. The last chance for comments and corrections is July 21 by E-mail. The Statutes will be hereafter be signed by at least 7 board members as fast as possible and the Society will be officially established.
Comments to the Statutes:
It was decided that a number of at least five members are required for a country to have a vote on the board.
It was emphasised that there is no dependency of national societies in relation to ESCS and this should be incorporated in the statutes.
3. The elections and new countries
Finland, France and Holland have not finalised election yet mainly due to too few members.
Switzerland has not elected academic member. It was suggested to contact researchers at ETH.
It was decided that the vote procedure should be initiated 8 weeks and not 5 weeks before the ESCS board meeting and the candidates should be announced 6 weeks and not 4 weeks before the ESCS board meeting
It was suggested that members of the board should approach researchers from countries not represented in ESCS. Countries in focus are: Czech Republic, Greece, Israel, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia and Sweden
Representatives from new countries will be associated members of the board within the next four-year period when local election is finalised.
4. Members of the society
The number of members in France, UK and Germany does not reflect the activities with combinatorial sciences in these countries. Recruitment of members in these countries awaits official establishment of ESCS.
A number of activities were suggested:
Promotion
Identification of candidates by the national board members
Email attached ESCS Newsletter with contact information
Encouragement to forward Newsletter to interested colleges
Society meeting stands
Advertisement in the new Society Journal
Organisation
Ready access to application forms via email (and homepage)
Electronic registration should be accepted
The registrations should be submitted to the secretary as well as to the national representatives
5. The tasks of board members
The following list was discussed:
To promote and service the ESCS at the national level
To maintain an updated national membership database
To maintain an updated Email list of national members
To add the chairman of the society to each national Email list
To Forward messages from the executive board when addressed to all members
To respond ASAP to requests from the executive board
To organise elections every 4 years of one academic and one industrial board member and forward the results to the executive board
To recruit new members from the field of combinatorial sciences
To raise the necessary funding from the local industry
To promote the idea of the ESCS in the European Community
To control the ESCS board.
In general, the tasks were agreed upon, but it was essential for some members of the board to distinguish between "tasks" and "responsibilities". Morten Meldal, has made a revised list.
6. The Society journal: Combinatorial Molecular Science (Wiley-VCH GMBH)
The Journal will be published in a print and internet version. Start 2001, 6 issues per year (4 the first year). The main competitor is considered to be J. Comb Chem.
Mark Bradley is appointed Editor in chief and Günther Jung is appointed Editor for combinatorial synthesis of small molecules and analytical techniques. The advisory board is expected to include members from both European and non European countries. The board members should suggest advisory board invites from combichem laboratories worldwide to Gudrun Walter (GWalter@wiley-vch.de)
News from the society could be included in the Journal.
Advertisement with aims and scope for the Journal and with call for papers will be initiated in the autumn.
7. The ESCS-meeting: ICCS in Hungary (Dormán)
Four distinguished lectures + invited speaker has already been contacted. The program is very promising. Specific companies will sponsor different seminars and there will be possibilities for general sponsors. The budget for the conference is 150,000 $.
There was a dispute about the share of possible loss and revenue between the local conference organisers and ESCS. This issue has to be resolved. It was agreed that the ESCS should generally receive around 30 $/ participant from the profit of the ESCS meetings, provided such a profit would result. The next meeting in Hungary 2001 was an exception since the local committee currently takes the financial risk of the arrangement and it was agreed that an equal share of any profits between ESCS and the Hungarian society should be established by negotiations. ESCS will on the other hand support any deficit with funding available on a basis of up to equal share with the organisers.
Link: www.eurocombi.com
8. The Society homepage (Bradley)
The home page www.combichem.org will very soon be established, including online registration, login area for board members and ordinary members.
All board members should submit GPD pictures of them self and 6 lines CV to be included on the page.
It was pointed out that the name of the society is European Society of Combinatorial Sciences and not European Society for Combinatorial Sciences
9. Election of Executive board
The following board was ellected
Chairman: M. Meldal
Secretary: F. Darvas
Treasurer: H. Gstach
EU-Contact: R. Liskamp
Webmaster: M. Bradley
10. Membership fee
A fee of 30 $ was decided with commence 2001.