International Society for Microbial Ecology

President's update

Phil Hugenholtz - ISME President

As we say goodbye to 2022, we want to reflect on the successful ISME18 conference in Lausanne. We thank the Lausanne LOC, conference chair Christof Holliger, and everyone who participated and contributed to its success. It was wonderful to be able to come together in person again and experience the high quality of talks and discussions.

Looking ahead, we are excited to announce that ISME19 will be held in Cape Town in 2024. The ISME Executive team and Cape Town LOC have already started to prepare the program. We hope to see all of you there and continue to build and strengthen the microbial ecology community.

In addition, we are pleased to announce that starting in 2023, your membership fees will provide you with two years of membership instead of one. This is one of the new measures to improve the societies offering. We hope this will encourage you to stay engaged with ISME and we will continue to work to increase our value proposition through various activities and benefits.

Relatedly, we are excited to announce several new benefits and are increasing opportunities and benefits for ISME members from January 2023. These benefits include continuing to support the Ambassador Fund, for national activities in microbial ecology, and increasing the ISME Regional Meetings Fund to support regional activities in non-ISME conference years. There are several such activities currently being planned for 2023...

Read more about our new benefits

ISME Communications was launched in March 2021 and is a fully open-access partner to The ISME Journal.

It's been a productive year for The ISME Journal, handling 1,431 submissions and publishing 158 articles. Our journal metrics remain high, with a 2021 impact factor of 11.2.

Read more about ISMEJ and ISME Commun

Message from the Director of the Ambassadors Program
Thulani Makhalanyane - ISME Ambassadors Program Director

Dear ISME Members, I am delighted to share with you some exciting updates on the ISME Ambassador Program. As you will know, the Program was reinvigorated under the leadership of former Director Nicole Webster and aims to promote the work of the society. The program aims to engage with scientists and researchers in the field of microbial ecology, and we have a strong drive to increase the participation of underrepresented....

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ISME Early Career Scientist Committee update

The ISME Early Career Scientist Committee (ECSC) organizes all kinds of interesting projects, such as ISME Conversations. Their latest Conversation features Raquel Peixoto, our new ISME Vice President and Associate Professsor at KAUST, Saudi Arabia. Several exciting new interviews are in the pipeline and will be published early next year.

The ECSC saw each other for the first time in person at the ISME18 meeting and organized a Roundtable event together with Mike Manefield (UNSW, Australia) on the topic “Nurturing careers and...

Ambassador of the year, Prof. Rup Lal

It was indeed an honor to accept the Best Ambassador Award during the Ambassador meet held during the ISME18 conference organized at Lausanne, Switzerland from August 14-19, 2022. My journey as Senior Ambassador of the International Society for Microbial Ecology (ISME), The Netherlands for the Indian Region, started in...

Read Rup Lal's message

SeqCode update

A governance structure similar to other nomenclatural codes has been finalised and election of officers is in progress. The fully fledged SeqCode will begin in earnest at the beginning of 2023. In the meantime there are already 31 names that have been validly published under the SeqCode. Batch submissions will be coming soon! For further information please visit the ISME website.

ISME18

We also want to make use of the opportunity to thank our members that attended ISME18 for their contribution and input to the meeting.
Please note that it is now possible to view the report on ISME18, with statistics on the conference, or look back at the meeting through the photos. Also, please be aware that for you as a member the talks of the ISME18 Keynote Speakers are available for viewing via ISME Talks.

We hope to see you all again at ISME19, in Cape Town, 18-23 August 2024!