Minutes of 2024 FIMSA Council Meeting

2024-11-12Source:FIMSA

Place: Taipei International Convention Center, Taipei, Taiwan
Hybrid style
Time: 12:30-14:30 Oct. 25, 2024

Participants
Ex-Co
 Name  Role  
 Sunil Arora  President  In person
 Osamu Takeuchi  Vice-president  In person
 Bo Huang  Secretary General  On-line
 Kiyoshi Takeda  Treasurer  In person
 Laura Mackay  Past President  In person







Councillors
 Name  Society
 Di Yu  Australia  In person
 Yuzhang Wu  China  On-line
 Liwei Lu  Hong Kong  On-line
 Amit Awasthi  India  In person
 Mehrnaz Mesdaghi  Iran  On-line
 Tanapat Palaga  Thailand  In person
 Dhanushka Dasanayake  Sri Lanka  On-line
 Kazuyo Moro  Japan  In person
 Yongliang Zhang  Singapore  In person
 Young-Min Hyun  South Korea  In person
 Shie-Liang Hsieh  Taiwan  In person

Other attendee
Gregory J. Tsay Taiwan In person

1. Opening remarks
Dr. Sunil Arora opened the meeting and all the participants introduced themselves.


2. EXCO Reports
2.1 Secretory General: Dr. Bo Huang reported the activities and conferences hosted by FIMSA from 2021-2024. He explained FIMSA congress totally overlapped with CSI Annual Meeting so he could not participate the meeting in person.
2.2 Treasurer: Dr Kiyoshi Takeda reported on FIMSA finances from 2021-2024. He thanked the KAI for returning the grant for FIMSA 2021. He also explained the revenue from the IUIS and expenses for IUIS2023, FIMSA training course in 2023 Japan, and FIMSA congress 2024 in Taiwan.

3. Council Members' reports
Councillors from FIMSA member societies except Qatar presented the activities from 2022-2024. 

4. Plans for upcoming FIMSA meetings
4-1. FIMSA Advanced Course, 2025 (India)
Dr. Amit Awasthi presented the preparation of the FIMSA Advanced Immunology Course 2025, planned to be held at 10-12 February 2025, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, INDIA. Dr. Machey pointed out that the gender balance of the speakers could be improved.

4-2. FIMSA Advanced Course, 2026 (Australia)
Dr. Di Yu presented the preparation of 2026 FIMSA Advanced Training Course 
in Translational Immunology conjoint with ASI International Clinical Translation School (CTS). The course is planned to be held at 27/Thursday -30/Sunday, August 2026, in Translational Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia. The ASI will provide 20 x international (1,000 AUD) + 20 x domestic (500 AUD) Scholarships.

4-3. 10th FIMSA Congress, 2027
The proposal by the IIS to hold the 10th FIMSA Congress, 2027 in Delhi was approved by the council members. Dr. Amit Awasthi presented the outline of the congress.

5. Election for the next ExCo
All the participants voted online by using the Zoom voting function with the help of the Taiwan Immunology society.
5-1. President: Dr. Osamu Takeuchi, the current vice president, automatically become the president of FIMSA from 2025-2027.
5-2. Vice President: Dr. Di Yu was nominated as the candidate for the vice president, and no other candidates appeared. Dr. Di Yu was approved by the councillors and ExCo for the position.
5-3. Secretory General: Dr. Bo Huang and Dr. Amit Awasthi were invited to present to the group about their nomination and vision for FIMSA activities and objectives. After the voting, Dr. Arora announced that the result for Dr Bo Huang as the Secretary General.
5-4. Treasurer: Dr. Young-Min Hyun and Dr. Tanapat Palaga were invited to present to the group about their nomination and vision for FIMSA activities and objectives. After the voting, Dr. Arora announced that the result for Dr Young-Min Hyun as the Treasurer.

6. Formal handing-over to New ExCo
Dr. Sunil Arora introduced Dr. Osamu Takeuchi and he appreciated all the current FIMSA ExCo and council members for their contributions, and presented the visions for future FIMSA activities. 


7. Discussion on the gender equality in FIMSA
The problems of the gender balance in FIMSA councillors and conference speakers were raised by Dr. Laura Mackay and other councillors. FIMSA generated Women Speaker Database, though they are not so actively used recently. So, we discussed the way to reactivate the database. It was discussed to revise the FIMSA policy to gender balance to 50:50 in FIMSA conferences. Also, generation of a committee to discuss gender equality was considered.

8. Closing remarks:
All the participants appreciated the past president Dr Mackay and the Treasurer Dr. Takeda for their great contributions to FIMSA. Because of Dr. Mackay's leadership in FIMSA and Dr. Takeda’s handling of the budget, FIMSA developed in these years.
Dr. Sunil Arora appreciated the Chinese society for the support of FIMSA website.
And the meeting was closed.