Setac-Europe reaches 1,000 members!

Abstract

SETAC-Europe reached a landmark when the 1,000th member joined during the 1996 annual meeting in Sicily. Having reached this milestone, it seems appropriate to reflect on how we attained it and to consider our plans for the future. At the end of 1988 SETAC had 1,435 members, of whom only 72 were from outside of North America. Among this 72 were a small and committed group, who, supported by key figures in SETAC from North America, believed that the time was ripe to introduce SETAC to Europe in a positive and active manner. With this in mind, SETAC-Europe, the sister organization of SETAC in North America, was established in 1989 with a constitution closely modeled on the original SETAC constitution. The first SETAC meeting in Europe took place in 1990 when members in the United Kingdom (UK) hosted a meeting in Peterborough with some 50 to 60 attendees from five or six countries. Six years later our annual meetings attract some 500 to 850 attendees representing some 25 to 35 countries; our membership stands at 1.075 and is growing at approximately 20% per annum. I believe two factors have been primarily responsible for this growth. First, the original concept and constitution of SETAC, developed in North America, provided an excellent base for the development of the Society in Europe; we were able to learn a great deal from the North American experience. Second, we were aware that we had to develop a European identity while recognizing local and national needs within Europe and contributing to SETAC as a global organization. The original concept of SETAC, as developed in North America, has proved to be attractive and robust in Europe. The democratic nature of SETAC and the constitutional requirement for the balanced involvement of scientists in academia, industry, and government have been particularly important in helping SETAC-Europe become a key forum for the discussion and development of environmental toxicology and chemistry. The close partnership between SETAC-Europe and SETAC in North America was also attractive to potential members, as it provided a mechanism for enhanced contacts with colleagues there. So, the time was right, and the structure, aims and objectives, and process of operating the Society, now well established, were attractive. The ingredients for success were there. How did we help to make them work? Following in the footsteps of SETAC in North America was reasonably straightforward. Their constitution provided the map, and their experience, the guide. Close contact between their Board of Directors and the SETAC-Europe Council and their respective officers has been, and remains, important. These formal and informal contacts were a channel for much useful information and advice. More recently, the relationship between SETAC in North America and SETAC-Europe has become more formalized, though no less friendly, through the establishment of the International Council of SETAC (ICS), which now coordinates activities at the continental scale. One of the first major decisions to be made was the location for the SETAC-Europe office. Brussels was the obvious location. At the geographical and political center of Europe, it was a practical and symbolic choice. It has also proved to be functional. Being in Brussels gave us access to the services of an excellent volunteer Executive Director, without whom we would have struggled to survive, let alone grow. Our office staff have shown real commitment to the Society and are an important resource. All are competent in at least three languages, a valuable asset in Europe. Travel to Council meetings in Brussels, with its central location and good communications, is also relatively easy. We have worked hard to maximize the geographical spread of locations of annual meetings, thereby enhancing the opportunity for local scientists to attend and to get a taste of what we have to offer. Since 1990 a different country has hosted our annual meeting each year. To date SETAC-Europe annual meetings have been held in the UK (Sheffield), Germany (Potsdam), Portugal (Lisbon), Belgium (Brussels), Denmark (Copenhagen), and Italy (Taormina). Future meetings are planned for The Netherlands (Amsterdam), France (Bordeaux), Germany (Leipzig), and in the year 2000, the UK (Brighton). In addition to our annual meetings we have organized an increasing number of well-regarded workshops. These workshops, typically three to four per year, have addressed a wide variety of topics, ranging from aspects of life-cycle assessment (LCA) to aquatic model ecosystem studies and on to biotrans-formation. And again, although maintaining the quality of the scientific input has been paramount, efforts have always been made to ensure the widest geographical representation of participants. The output from these workshops has been well received by regulators and industry. Local or national organizations within SETAC-Europe, modeled on the regional chapters that exist in SETAC in North America, may have much to offer in the future. The UK branch of SETAC-Europe has demonstrated how much can be achieved at the local/national level once the membership numbers achieve a critical mass. Members in the UK hold some three meetings each year, have an active student forum, and have established a system of small research and travel grants. Until now, the UK has been the only European country with a local branch, but following a recent meeting in Germany, which attracted 160 attendees, a decision was made to form a German-speaking branch of SETAC-Europe. Discussions are also taking place about forming a Nordic Branch. Both of these are healthy signs of regional development within SETAC-Europe. I believe that local or national branches will play an increasingly important part in the future growth of SETAC-Europe. There is a limit to the service to members that can, or should, be provided centrally. Those things that can best be done locally should be. Local activities provide an ideal opportunity to introduce students and others with travel limitations to the Society and also offer the opportunity to tailor activities to meet specific local needs. Our constitution requires that our Council membership maintain a balance among industry, government, and academia; we also try, with some success, to encourage scientists from different countries to stand for election. With 15 elected and 1 or 2 ex-officio members present at our Council meetings, it is quite normal for us to have at least six to eight nationalities around the Council table. At the last count our membership was 1,075, and rising! Although the number of members per country is useful for administrative and organizational purposes, the most instructive statistic, and the one most useful for strategic planning, is the number of members per capita in each country. Table 1 presents these two sets of data and the relative rankings produced. It is clear from the ranking on a per-capita basis that SETAC-Europe is most successful in Scandinavia, Switzerland, and The Netherlands; but on a simple headcount, the majority of members are in the UK, Germany, and The Netherlands. Our target should be a balanced per capita membership across countries, aiming for some 10 members per million inhabitants. Membership is extremely low in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe. We are beginning to make attempts to address this, but as was recently recognized for economic development in the former East Germany, it will take much longer than originally envisaged. One program we have initiated is to send Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry to deserving institutions in Eastern Europe. In addition to coordinating activities between the two existing continental units, SETAC-Europe and SETAC in North America, the ICS is actively promoting the development of SETAC in other regions. The most advanced of these is in the Asia/Pacific area, where an embryo organization now exists. Both SETAC continental units, through the ICS, will continue to encourage these developments and to lend support where they are able. Education is an important part of any broadly based scientific society. SETAC-Europe is endeavoring to contribute in this important area but it is in the early stages. A detailed register of undergraduate and postgraduate courses in environmental sciences in the UK is now in its second edition, and a similar register of European postgraduate courses was recently produced. Short courses at our annual meetings have not been as successful as we had hoped. This is probably a combination of the size of the annual meetings (perhaps 500 to 850 attendees can only support two to four short courses) and the selection of topics (they must be of sufficiently wide interest). A serious attempt to improve short courses is being made for the 1997 annual meeting in Amsterdam. Like SETAC in North America, we produce a newsletter. The SETAC-Europe Newsletter has grown and improved beyond recognition, thanks to the hard work of the office and editorial staff. Initially, only 4 pages were produced quarterly; now we have a bimonthly edition of 16 pages. The newsletter provides a valuable mechanism for the elected officers to inform the membership of activities and for members to communicate in a relatively informal way on matters of technical and scientific interest. An active LCA group also produces an LCA newsletter that is distributed to all SETAC-Europe members and to a wide readership of LCA specialists, providing a ready source of information on LCA for those active and interested in LCA. Like many others, including SETAC in North America, we will soon be creating a WWW site for SETAC-Europe. Finally, I would be remiss not to mention the role that the SETAC journal, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, plays as a communication flagship for the science and the Society. This, of course, has been of great benefit to SETAC-Europe in its early years, providing members immediate access to high-quality scientific information and at the same time giving them a vehicle for publication of their own research. It is also interesting to note that, since the creation of SETAC-Europe in 1989, the percentage of papers submitted to Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry by authors from outside of the United States has risen from 24% in 1989 to 45% in 1994, the most recent year for which I have data. This has not been a comprehensive list of things that have contributed to the development and growth of SETAC-Europe since its inception, nor of our plans for the future, but I hope it helps to give some insight into why it is such a successful and rapidly growing organization. And maybe, given all of the above, it's not so surprising that SETAC-Europe now has more than 1,000 members. Will it be 2,000 by the year 2000?