G.Valet, Jan.9, 1997
Dear Joe,
thank you for the letter of Nov.22, 1996. It was only delivered yesterday due to its mailing by surface mail.
The national cytometric societies in Europe fulfill important functions for the local development of the cytometric discipline. The centralisation of science budgets and funding regulations as well as the increasing influence of the Brussels public health authorities in the course of the European unification process is paralleled, however, at present by the relative inability of the national cytometry societies to cope with this situation e.g. in view of influencing scientific budget planning, development of joint research projects etc. While collaborations of science groups e.g. between the East and West coast are common and unreflected reality due to the more ancient federative structure of the US, similar research initiatives in Europe are still relatively rare. A similar ease in scientific cooperation is required in Europe. The present efforts aim in this direction.
The positive attitude of ISAC towards this effort is very much appreciated. It is evident that the international cytometry network is strongest when set up in a complementary way and the present efforts are fully in line with this goal. In case of the EFCS/EUCS foundation, the joint organisation (see Szollosi) with ISAC of certain focus meetings, workshops or courses as well as the increased potential for the international efforts on standardisation, quality control and education in cytometry seem to be attractive challenges for the coming years.
Concerning the publication of ACP, the further development of the journal will largely depend on decisions of a future European Federation or Union of Cytometric Societies (EFCS/EUCS). While the preferential clinical orientation of ACP seems to be undisputed in the current discussion, possible changes may be made to attract more flow cytometric contributions and to rebalance the editorial board accordingly (see Brugal, van Bockstaele, D'Hautcourt, Szollosi) . In any case ACP reaches already now a more extended readership than corresponds to the ESACP members who are preferentially histo- and cytopathology i.e. image analysis oriented.
An electronic mailing list has been set up for the discussion forum on the EFCS/EUCS foundation. You are very welcome to follow the progress of the discussion on the Internet under http://www.biochem.mpg.de/valet/efcs.html
These Internet pages are presently not branched to our main Internet site i.e. the address is not generally known. This provides a semi-public privacy for the discussion until the EFCS/EUCS foundation will come into the more definitive phase where input from the general membership of the national cytometric societies will be sollicited.
I believe that the discussion group will appreciate your active participation. I will enter your E-mail address into the mailing list i.e. you will receive all messages and your own messages will be automatically redistributed to all participants of the discussion forum. Furthermore it seems useful to display your letter as well as this response letter on the EFCS Internet site to manifest the active interest of ISAC in this matter.
with best regards
Günter