Minutes of the SFBD General Assembly 2020

8 December 2020
By glenda comai
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The SFBD 2020 General Assembly washeld online via the Zoom application between 12:00 and 13:55 on 16 November 2020. Voting was conducted electronically and anonymously via the Zoom application.

39 members of the Society took part in the General Assembly, including 13 members of the Board of Directors. The slides presented at the meeting are available here.

The assembly adopted the moral and financial reports presented by the Board members present, each presenting an annual report on their sector of activity. The financial report was adopted unanimously, the moral report with 97% positive votes and 3% abstention.

The assembly also validated (95% of positive votes, 5% abstention) the proposal to amend the statutes in order to create SFBD officers appointed by the Board of Directors to take charge of certain activities of the company (e.g. representation with the federations of learned societies). The new statutes are available online.

Many suggestions were made by the members present concerning future actions:

  • New actions towards young people:
    • Fund a contribution to open access funding for doctoral and post-doctoral articles. Attention to the integration with HaL.
    • Fund short stays (e.g. up to 3 months) to send doctoral students/postdocs to acquire specific technical skills in other laboratories. Complementary to EMBO short-term fellowships, very competitive.  The Company of Biologists offers this type of support.
  • New actions for expatriate members:
    • Setting up a section of the website with information on scholarships, funding, funding landscape & deadlines to consider a possible return to France.
    • Propose a contribution to travel expenses to participate in recruitment interviews in case of oral selection.
  • Impact of the health crisis on meetings and seminars:
    • In view of the success of virtual congresses (1200 registered for “From cells to Embryos” with up to 500 people connected simultaneously, ditto for an EMBL congress on organoids), think about hybrid face-to-face/distance meetings beyond the period of the health crisis. Online participant fees could perhaps help to reduce the cost of face-to-face registration. Be aware, however, that the hybrid format has a cost.
    • The Zoom SFBD subscription could be used to organise a series of scheduled online conferences, along the lines of the World wide neuro webinars.
  • Environmental responsibility:
    • Encourage SFBD members to use the train rather than the plane: The difference in the amount of the train vs. plane grants may need to be increased to achieve the objective.
    • publicize environmental awareness initiatives such as the Labo1.5 initiative
  • Upcoming meetings and outreach actions:
    • Regarding the organisation of the next French-Japanese congress in Strasbourg (2022): involve/seek the support of HSFPO, also based in Strasbourg.
    • Organise an annual photo competition (in partnership with mainstream newspapers).
    • Funding/organising events to share scientific culture: Several participants have experience of children’s workshops and are willing to share it.