Society News
New President's Address
By Wilhelm Foissner, for the
Aug 4, 2006, 10:04

Dear Colleagues,

Greetings to all of you! Unfortunately, I could not attend this meeting because I had invitations from the Chinese and Japanese Societies to give plenary lectures at their national meetings. I accepted these invitations before I got the information that I have been elected as President of the International Society of Protistologists (ISOP).

Since the late summer of 2005, the SOCIETY OF PROTOZOOLOGISTS (SOP) is the INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF PROTISTOLOGISTS (ISOP).

Wilhelm Foissner

I thank all who participated in the vote and, especially, who voted me. I consider this as a great challenge and feel honoured by your confidence. The new name implies two important changes. First, the society wants become INTERNATIONAL and, second, it should represent not only protoZOOLOGISTS but also PROTISTologists, taking into account the new knowledge emerging from the new methods.

The new name is full of meaning and will require great changes, best done step by step, to be accepted by the present and forthcoming members. It means not only that we have to compete for members with many other "Societies" and "International Societies", but also that our traditional structure, where the national societies are affiliated to the "(North American) Society of Protozoologists", must change. This also will require that the most powerful instrument of an "International" society is revived, viz., the "International Congress of Protozoology" which is clearly declining, considering the past three meetings each having less than 500 participants! In short, the ISOP needs to become organized like other International Societies, for instance, the International Association for Theoretical and Applied Limnology. Otherwise, the ISOP will be considered to be mainly a North American society by many members and potential members. I understand that this is a fairly radical change for our North American colleagues, but without this step the society will, basically, remain as it is. As a consequence, the duties of the "International President" should be clearly separated from those of the presidents of the national societies.

Provided that I can convince the North American colleagues to become a national society among the other national societies, we have to think over the future duties of the International President. As mentioned above, the most urgent issue is the rejuvenation of the International Congress of Protozoology. I have various ideas how this can be achieved, but it would not make sense to discuss this matter as long as the other has not been solved. All these issues are complex and need time to ripe. Thus, a further change is necessary: the International President should be on duty for 4 or 5 years, as is common in other International Societies, to have the possibility to realize his/her ideas.

Dear colleagues, I recognize the sensibility of the ideas presented in this letter, and all are open for discussion. But I am convinced that significant changes are necessary to fill the new name with contents and to rejuvenate our society. I wish you a successful meeting in Lisbon and remain with kind regards,

Wilhelm Foissner