President's update

Phil Hugenholtz - ISME President

Hello ISME colleagues! We had a wonderful site visit to Cape Town in March this year, and I can assure you that you are in for a treat if you attend ISME19 - the conference venue, Cape Town and surrounding areas are spectacular. The scientific program is shaping up to be equally spectacular with confirmed plenaries and keynotes by Ed DeLong, Jill Banfield, Simonetta Gribaldo and Osvaldo Ulloa.

In addition to The Jim Tiedje Award and Early Career Award, ISME19 will be our first meeting to honour a new category, the Mid-Career Award. 

With three prestigious awards to fill and so many outstanding microbial ecologists to fill them, we are reaching out to you, the membership, to nominate worthy individuals, so please participate! 

In other major news that hopefully you will be aware of by now – we’re moving to Oxford University Press in 2024. Note that there are still open access (OA) waivers up for grabs this year, so please consider applying for them.

ISME is hiring!

We are looking for an experienced professional to manage and support the Society. As the Executive Secretary of the ISME Board, you will be responsible for managing finances, Board & Committee meetings and administration, communication and other office tasks. 

Deadline: Interim deadline is 23 July 2023. However, the position remains open until a suitable candidate has been found. 

We now welcome workshop proposals for ISME19

The ISME19 (Local) Organizing Committee intends to host several workshops in the week before (or after) ISME19. If you are interested in organizing a workshop on your topic, that would be of interest to ISME19 delegates, you can send us your proposal and we might help you securing a venue and organizing the logistics.  

ISME21 in 2028 may take place in your city!

After taking place in Cape Town in 2024 and Auckland, New Zealand in 2026, the ISME symposium is looking for a next destination! Interested scientists can now put forward an Expression of Interest for their city to be the host for ISME21 in 2028.
Note that the deadline for your Expression of Interest is 15 September 2023. 

Sponsorships

ISME aims to serve the public good and its members and is committed to supporting and promoting the growth and success of the field of Microbial Ecology. As part of this mission, ISME provides grants and sponsorship opportunities to members and organizations whose objectives are in line with the values and objectives of ISME. 

Editorial Board recruitment ISME Communications

An open call for Editorial Board (EB) members to support the Editors-in-Chief and Senior Editors of ISME Communications was recently launched and is still open.

The new passionate members of the EB will contribute by reviewing manuscripts, promoting the journal, and advising on journal strategy and development. 

Awards

We are also very happy to launch a new call for nominations for the ISME awards. We want to hear from our community suggestions of inspiring and creative researchers who have been contributing to the development of Microbial Ecology worldwide. The three categories of ISME awards are: The Jim Tiedje Award, the Young Investigators Award, and the newly established Mid-Career Award. Who would you like to nominate? We look forward to hearing about the outstanding work being done by the members of our community.

Regional meeting fund

The ISME Regional meetings fund is used to support regional events dedicated to Microbial Ecology. Upcoming regional meetings are:

• ISME - Latin America (ISME-LA) in Buenos Aires, Argentina 7 - 10 August 2023
• Central and Eastern European Symposium on Microbial Ecology (CEESME) in Budapest, Hungary 12 - 15 September 2023
• South Asian Symposium on Microbial Ecology (SASME) in Kathmandu, Nepal 1 - 3 November 2023