Draft General Assembly Florence 25 October 2024
These minutes will be adopted at the next General Assembly in Lisbon (2026)
The meeting started at 13.30.
1. Welcome and introduction by the President
The President, Rino Rappuoli welcomes the members of the Executive Board and the National Delegates to the General Assembly.
2. Roll-call & Introduction of voting delegates by the Secretary General and his assistant
Representatives of the following National Committees and Member Societies were present:
- Australia – Ipek Kurtboke, Paul Young
- Austria – Diethard Mattanovich
- Belgium – Etienne Thiry
- Chile – Fernando Valiente
- Croatia – Dijana Skoric
- Danmark – Preben Nielsen
- Finnland – Mirko Lampi
- Greece – Cleo Anastapoulou
- India – Sanjay Singh Negi
- Israel – Eliora Ron
- Italy – Daniella Marchetti, Floriana Campanile, Rino Rappuoli, Viviana Cafiso
- Macedonia – Marko Kostovski
- Netherlands – Robert Samson
- New Zealand – Stephen On
- Portugal – Ama Freitas, Jorge Pedrosa
- Spain – Antonio Ventosa, Rafael Giraldo
- Sweden – Edward Moore
- Taiwan – Po-Ren Hsueh
- UK – Heather Lawrence
- USA – Paul Duplex, Scott Baker
3. Adoptions of Minutes of the Rotterdam General Assembly
The minutes were posted on the IUMS website 2 years ago. Objections: none.
Questions:
The minutes were adopted as correct. The minutes of the meeting will be posted on the website after this GA.
4. Report of the President (Rino Rappuoli)
IUMS has come of age and is still expanding. 11 new members joined or renewed membership of IUMS last year. Main activity of the IUMS lies in the organization of the annual congresses. The last IUMS congress was in Rotterdam and due to the Covid pandemic, the meeting was only online. The President expressed his gratitude to the Dutch Microbiological society for their excellent organization of the IUMS congress in Rotterdam in spite of the serious problems with the Corona restrictions. In recent years more and more integration of the 3 divisions took place.
The focus of IUMS is now to saving the microbes for saving the planet. A paper was published on Save the microbes to save the planet. A call to action of the International Union of the Microbiological Societies (IUMS). IUMS and ASM convened a Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) to outline microbial technologies that mitigate climate change. Their resulting report highlights microbe-driven innovations for a non-fossil carbon economy, food security, and urgent methane mitigation
Report of Treasurer
IUMS Financial Summary 2022-2024 shows the income of the last 3 years and the first half of 2017. Membership fees have been fairly consistent till 2016, when some of the fees were not paid. This is being addressed now. Hence the increase in 2017 and that number will still go up. The income from this congress will be integrated in the budget later this year. Investments did not generate much, due to the current financial situation worldwide.
| Summary ($) |
2023 |
2022 |
2021 |
| Income |
56,818 |
41,767 |
40,443 |
| Expenditure |
34,216 |
38,787 |
32,743 |
| Surplus |
22,602 |
2,980 |
7,700 |
| Accumulated fund balance at start of year |
189,261 |
186,281 |
178,578 |
| Accumulated fund balance at end of year |
211,863 |
189,261 |
186,281 |
| Percentage gain/loss |
12% |
2% |
4% |
Summary of income / expenditure: measures need to be taken to secure income out of membership dues. Contact details and membership numbers are crucial to send out invoices.
Balance sheet showing the value of IUMS. Total funds consist of General Funds and Designated Funds (Arima and Mudd awards). Funds are being adjusted slightly every year in order to reflect the investments.
| Budget 2023 - 2025 ($) |
Actual 2023 |
Budget 2023 |
Budget 2024 |
Budget 2025 |
| Income |
|
|
|
|
| Membership fees |
41,918 |
40,000 |
50,000 |
50,000 |
| Congress income |
- |
- |
28,000 |
- |
| Journal income |
14,900 |
10,000 |
19,000 |
TBC |
| Total income |
56,818 |
50,000 |
97,000 |
TBC |
| Expenditure |
|
|
|
|
| Representation at scientific meetings |
- |
- |
- |
2,000 |
| Outreach programme |
- |
5,000 |
- |
5,000 |
| Executive Board and IUMS Congress costs |
- |
10,000 |
15,000 |
10,000 |
| Subscriptions ICSU |
1,558 |
1,700 |
1,700 |
1,800 |
| Governance and Administration |
29,302 |
30,000 |
30,000 |
35,000 |
| General office expenses (inc website) |
3,090 |
1,200 |
3,000 |
3,000 |
| Bank charges & exchange rate gains/losses |
266 |
1,200 |
1,500 |
1,500 |
| Total expenditure |
34,216 |
49,100 |
51,200 |
58,300 |
| Income over expenditure |
22,602 |
900 |
45,800 |
TBC |
Details of the Finances can also be found on https://iums.org/iums-resources/iums-financial-statements.html
Current challenges faced by IUMS: Congress (includes global economy, visa issues, travel, Covid)
- Reduction in reserves
- Membership management / Income reduction
- Constitution / Legal status
Questions:
Following the report of the treasurer, there were no questions from the GA.
The report was adopted without corrections.
6. Report of Secretary (Robert A. Samson)
Member societies: In 2024 IUMS consists of 51 member societies. Some countries have more than one society (e.g. Japan, Korea). The union now unites more than 80.000 microbiologists. Some countries failed to pay their dues and reported financial constraints often due to their national economies. The union now unites ca. 80.000 microbiologists
New members (since 2022)
- ASM American Society of Microbiology (renewed)
- Italian Society of Pharmaceutical Microbiology.
- Italian Society for Agricultural Food and Environmental Microbiology SIMTREA
- Società Italiana di Microbiologia (SIM)
- German VAAM – Association for General and Applied Microbiology (renewed)
- Gambia society of microbiology
- Microbiologists Society, India
- Macedonian Microbiological Society
- Malaysian society for microbiology (renewed)
- Sudanese Society of Microbiology
- Swiss Society for Microbiology (renewed)
IUMS website: In May 2023 the IUMS website is now managed by
Pixwork S.r.l. in Roma (Italy). If the societies have any need for information, please inform the Secretary General who can also place important meetings on the website.
Journal: The status of the World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology (WJMB) has been examined again and there is renewed interest of the Springer Publishers for collaboration and using the journal as an official IUMS platform. It is now agreed that that WJMB will provide three pages per year free of charge for IUMS to publish in the journal in the online and printed editions. WJMB will include the IUMS logo on its cover and in turn be allowed to leave the text “an official journal of IUMS” on the cover. Springer also managed that the journal Mycopathologia as an IUMS journal. The Secretary General negotiated the same conditions as for the WJMB.
Following the Report of the Secretary there were no questions.
The report was adopted without corrections.
7. Divisional Reports
There were no reports from the divisions, but the status and importance of the ComCofs was discussed. There are several commissions which are focussed and important for the systematics of microorganisms.
8. Report on IUMS Awards (M. Pizza)
The IUMS awards were not given due to the corona pandemic and will be postponed until 2026.
Questions:
9. IUMS Outreach Programs. Report of activities (Robert A. Samson).
There was no activity in 2021-2024 of the outreach programme due to the Covid pandemic. The last activity was the workshop food safety and mycotoxins in Indonesia Yogyakarta, attended by > 200 microbiologists. A new programme is scheduled in 2025.
Questions:
10. IUMS Congress 2026
At the general assembly no decision was made for the next venue of the IUMS congress and this will be discussed by the Executive Board
Questions: none.
The meeting was adjourned at 13.59 (October 25).
