From the Chief Executive
At the Annual General Meeting in September, the President launched the Microbiology Society’s new strategy, which will run from 2023 to 2027. It is the result of months of work by Council members and staff, consultations with various groups of members and assessments of the changing external environment. It would be easy to imagine that all this effort would lead to substantial changes in the strategy, but in the end much of it is unaltered. The changes are focused and important.
A s Council members listened to the membership and thought about how the Microbiology Society can have an even greater impact in the future, they honed in on three things that they want to strengthen. The first is to be ever more inclusive – our values say that we are welcoming to anyone interested in microbes, and the more we can make that a reality, the stronger we will be. Through a better understanding of you, the members, we can better unlock the potential of your broad and deep specialised knowledge. The second emphasis is on the international dimension of the Society’s work. If the last two years have shown us anything, it is that microbes don’t respect national boundaries. What the Microbiology Society seeks to do is harness local knowledge, whichever part of the world it comes from, and use it for worldwide impact. Third, recognising that our strength comes from our membership, Council wants to redouble our efforts to engage with you and to make it easier and ever more rewarding for you to interact with staff and with members of Committees and Editorial Boards so that we can optimise what we do to support and advance your careers in microbiology. The things that remain the same in the strategy are the things that have been unchanging since the wisdom of our founders originally set out the purpose of the Microbiology Society. Our first President, Sir Alexander Fleming, spoke at the inaugural meeting about “bringing together workers in the various branches of microbiology who might not otherwise meet and who would thus get acquainted and talking together – it is in this way that real advances will be made.” Marjory Stephenson, who was offered the founding Presidency before Fleming but modestly turned it down, said “we should make the scope of the Society as wide as possible.” They knew that one of the most crucial ways to advance the science of microbiology was to bring together microbiologists and get
them interacting. The world is now very different – technology, travel, funding, social pressures, the list of changes is endless – but the basic principle has been constant throughout. As we move into the period of the new strategy, one of the most important changes we face is the world of scientific publishing. It is a more competitive, more time-consuming business than it has ever been, and its importance in the lives of researchers has grown relentlessly, as scientists are measured, rewarded and judged more and more on the basis of articles they publish. From its earliest days, the Society has published important microbiology research – in its 75th year, our flagship journal Microbiology has published three papers by historian Peter Collins, detailing its fascinating story. Publishing has always been the main source of income for the Microbiology Society. The financial surplus that our journals generate funds our conferences, prizes, professional development activities and meetings. Rampant inflation makes life tougher for the Society just as it does for family budgets; the reason we have a financial buffer is the historic success of our journals. If the next five years are to be successful, if Council’s aim of a more inclusive Society with ever greater impact is to be realised, the journal titles will be crucial to that success. If you value the Microbiology Society, if you enjoyed Annual Conference or know someone who received a Harry Smith Summer Studentship, if you’d like to be on a Committee or if you think we can help with your professional development, the single easiest thing you could do to help is to submit your next research paper to one of our six journals, which between them provide a home for all microbiology.
Peter Cotgreave Chief Executive
p.cotgreave@microbiologysociety.org
66 Microbiology Today October 2022 | microbiologysociety.org
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