G.Valet, Jan.13, 1997
Dear colleagues
thank you for communicating the opinion of the RMS Cytometry Section and for the basically positive attitude towards this effort. I will address your points in the sequence of the message.
1. the aims of a Federation of European Cytometric Societies are obtained by reexpressing the present deficiencies in the European organisation of the cytometric discipline from the position papers of Sep.23 and Nov.19 positively as goals. Such a document will be shortly available on the EFCS Internet site.
Short term goals concern the foundation of the federation.
Long term goals concern the increased emphasis of the cytometric aspect in cell and disease related research projects of the EU with the aim to make more funds accessible for cytometric research in Europe. Since at this point one is in competition with other disciplines, national cytometric societies will have a hard time to access European funds on their own or to influence EU research policies. Long term goals concern also the development of cytometry as a discipline both at the electronic level in the Internet as well as at the institutional level in Europe.
2. EFCS membership will offer favorable access
- to EFCS meetings
- to the ACP journal in its new shape
- to electronic databases for keeping track of the results of the various
quality control and standardization efforts in clinical cytometry at the
European level and
- to the active participation in the development of the cytometric aspects in
the European health system.
These facilities are not available through the national cytometric societies or through ISAC.
The financial details cannot be answered precisely without an existing organisation. A predominantly electronic organisation as well as meetings of officers, council and committees during conferences together with the hosting of EFCS meetings by various national cytometric societies by turn-around, should keep the costs within acceptable limits.
3. It is not likely that the present ISAC organisation could efficiently advance the European issues for a small additional charge. In addition, ISAC is not exclusively organizing clinical cytometry in the US because the clinical division (CCD/clinical committee) of ISAC, CCS, GLIIFCA and the Chesapeake Bay Consortium are active in parallel in the US.
4. see last paragraph of 2.
5. EFCS will continue the biannual meeting sequence of ESACP and therefore profit from the gaps between ISAC meetings. In addition focus meetings can be organized. They are by definition open for coorganisation with other societies like ISAC or RMS (e.g. CYTO95 meeting in Southampton between RMS and ESACP).
6. The organizational structure of EFCS i.e. officers, councillors, committee members has to be worked out. According to the present development of the discussion, a federation of national cytometric societies with individual scientist membership only via the national cytometric societies seems to be the tendency of the majority. Communication links will be by E-mail or Inter/Intranet. The close collaboration of EFCS with European Working Groups as task oriented associations e.g. European Working Group for Clinical Cell Analysis with EFCS offers interesting new aspects.
Travel costs for committee members cannot be paid by EFCS in the early phase if one wants to keep the EFCS administration costs low. Additional income for these and other purposes can be generated from meetings, from royalties of the ACP journal, from other specific publications or from industrial sponsors.
7. The cytometric discipline forms increasingly a world wide network of national, regional and world wide societies. A network is by definition distributive and interactive. EFCS as a regional cytometry organization for Europe will integrate into the world wide network and make all efforts to positively coordinate its activities internationally with ISAC in order to efficiently develop the cytometric discipline. It is difficult to see which advantage a particular "umbrella" function of ISAC should offer to EFCS and why EFCS should operate e.g. its administration via the ISAC office in Breckenridge.
All national cytometric societies in Europe have developed their own identity over the past few years and always administrated themselves. It is my firm conviction that the representative of the various national cytometric societies will be motivated and capable to develop the regional European identity according to the specific European requirements.
With best regards
G.Valet