The broad church of international contact lens societies

Abstract

There are many national professional membership societies for contact lens practitioners such as the Contact Lens Society of America or the Cornea and Contact Lens Society of Australia or the Algemene Nederlandse Vereniging van Contactlensspecialisten (Netherlands), to only name a few. Other societies, such as the British Contact Lens Association or the European Contact Lens Society of Ophthalmologists, for example, perhaps have a more global reach. There are also a number of contact lens societies and associations that aim to be more international but with limited membership. Three spring to mind and represent very different aspects of the field. The International Association of Contact Lens Educators (www.iacle.org) has members in around 80 countries with membership limited to those involved in contact lens teaching [ [1] Shinde L. Thite N. Naroo S.A. IACLE: Exceptional education: exponential impact. Indian J Ophthalmol. 2020; 68: 984-987 Crossref PubMed Scopus (1) Google Scholar ]; and the International Society of Contact Lens Specialists (www.iscls.net) which was developed by and for practitioners providing specialist contact lens care. The third may be less well known to contact lens practitioners; the International Society for Contact Lens Research (ISCLR) (www.isclr.org) which was established in 1978, as an independent group to discuss and showcase the latest and emerging innovations in the field of contact lenses. There were early suggestions that the ISCLR could act as an international umbrella group for national contact lens societies, but this was never realised. Like the BCLA, it was agreed that membership would be from a broad church, encompassing scientists and researchers involved with contact lens research in the broadest terms, independent of their professional background. Unlike the BCLA, ISCLR membership was to be limited to around 100 people only and who are active in contact lens research.