By: Dr. Bruce Sells
CFBS Executive Director

INTRODUCTION:

For CFBS, the past year has represented a transition in the functioning of the organization. The Executive of the Federation has long believed that changes should be initiated if CFBS was to continue its role as a voice for the Biological/Biomedical Sciences in Canada. The following report with appendices documents the activities of the Ottawa office and the efforts made to modify the way we perform our duties and respond to the needs of our membership. The major highlights over the past year relate to 1.) The Strategic Plan; 2.)Modifications to the Annual Meeting; 3.) Our efforts to attract old and new Societies to become members of the Federation; 4.) A change in our approach to our Science Advocacy Activities, and 5) How we communicate with our membership.

A. STRATEGIC PLAN

During the first few months of my tenure, it was evident that the Federation would face a crisis of confidence if changes were not immediately initiated. To respond to the demands for change, the Executive at the June meeting in Winnipeg, agreed to a radical alteration in the format for the June 2000 Annual Meeting in Ottawa.

Prior to the meeting in Winnipeg, at which the outgoing President of CSBMCB, Peter Lewis, met with the Federation Board to discuss what were believed to be some of the issues of concern to its membership. CSBMCB had decided to hold a referendum on its association with CFBS. The referendum, much to the consternation of the CFBS Board, resulted in a decision for CSBMCB to withdraw from the Federation.

To deal with this event and to determine also the views of the other Canadian biological/biomedical societies a decision was made to hold a strategic planning session. The purpose of the Strategic Planning Session was to assess 1) whether the various societies supported the role of CFBS in acting as an advocate for issues related to biological science in Canada and 2) whether CFBS should continue to organize an Annual Scientific Meeting. To obtain broad input, 14 Societies were present to discuss a draft strategic plan which the ED prepared and distributed prior to the meeting and which has now been revised since receiving input from the attendees (see appendix 1).

Those Societies represented at the meeting also included those that were currently not members of the Federation. The Planning Session, held on Nov. 13, 1999, provided an excellent opportunity to determine the areas of discontent and to have a healthy exchange of ideas. The representatives attending, unanimously supported the Federation’s role in advocacy for the Life Sciences and strongly supported CFBS’ function in organizing an Annual Scientific Conference. CFBS has, therefore, in response to this vote of confidence begun to initiate the changes which it believes will make the Federation a stronger organization. A summary of the meeting is in appendix 2.

1. The Annual Meeting

With strong leadership from the Program Chair, Peter Anderson, an effective Local Organizing Committee headed by Mary L’Abbé and ably assisted by Kevin Cockell, Secretary/ Treasurer, modification to the Annual Meeting were instituted and carried out. The major changes have been, 1) focusing on two major themes; 2) developing each theme in depth; 3) advertising the Annual Meeting in publications appearing outside, as well as inside Canada; 4) shortening the meeting to 3 days, and 5) CFBS underwriting the financial responsibility for running the meeting. As of this writing, sponsorship for the Year 2000 Meeting has reached approximately $ 90,000 and pledges for the support of 10 speakers have been received. The number of sponsors this year is approximately 40 (see appendix 3). In addition 27 exhibitors will be present to display their company’s products.

The number of registrants recorded, as of June 12, has exceeded 420. This number does not include the 100 attendees from the Health Protection Branch, Health Canada, present for a one day program on the first day and those attendees sponsored by Danone on the Saturday sessions. The CFBS Annual Meeting was advertised this year in the Newsletters of the American Society of Cell Biology, the FASEB Journal, the American Society for Microbiology Newsletter, the News bulletin of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (see appendix 4). In addition notice of the Meeting has appeared on a variety of web-sites and in a number of nutrition newsletters.

Preliminary work has been done concerning the 2001 Annual Meeting. Given our requirement to establish a solid financial base for future CFBS activities, the decision was made to again hold the Meeting in Ottawa. This was done for two major reasons: 1). to take advantage of the Genetics Society of Canada’s presence in Ottawa for their annual scientific meeting in 2001, and 2).to exploit Ottawa as a location with a large catchment of potential attendees in the Toronto-Montreal-Ottawa region. The two major Themes for next year’s Meeting will be "Genetic Diseases" and "Environmental Issues". Ron Worton (Genetic Diseases) and Vance Trudeau (Environment)) will take leadership roles in helping to organize the symposia leaders.

2. Advocacy

In addition to the "lobbying" activity performed with the Canadian Council of University Biology Chairs (CCUBC) ( see below), our involvement with the Canadian Consortium for Research (CCR) and with the Tri-Council (Biology, Chemistry, Physics) we have initiated a new strategy. This approach has been an attempt to satisfy the interests of the two major areas within the Federation -i.e. "Biomedical" and Biological". The latter has felt underrepresented in our advocacy activities in the past and currently we are renewing our efforts to satisfy their needs and hopefully to encourage the "Biological Societies" back into the Federation.

During the week of May 15th, therefore, groups from the various societies were organized to visit decision-makers in Parliament and in the civil service and granting councils reflecting their particular interests.

During that week 12 separate meetings were arranged. Prior to the visits, an advocacy document was prepared and a draft circulated to members of the CCUBC Executive and to the Presidents of each of the Societies. In an attempt to obtain feedback, a number of responses were received and are being incorporated before releasing the final document (see appendix 5). The major issues discussed related to i) indirect costs of research; ii) support for graduate students/post doctoral fellows, and iii) environmental issues (e.g. species diversity) plus personnel needs in systematics and bioinformatics. For the CCUBC tour, 6 Chairs took part and with the CFBS tour there were again 6 different scientist involved.

The Federal budget, announced in February, contained a number of initiatives of importance to our membership. CFBS responded, applauding the Government's action and welcoming the new developments. At the same time we called attention to a number of issues which still need to be addressed (see appendix 6 ).

B. FEDERATION MEMBERSHIP

1. Contacts Made

In an attempt to encourage greater participation of the various Biological Societies in our activities, the ED has made contact with the Presidents/Executives of Societies who are not currently members of CFBS. These have included the following:

1. Canadian Society of Zoology
2. Canadian Society of Plant Physiology (CSPP)
3. Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (CSEP)
4. Canadian Society of Immunology (CSI)
5. Canadian Society for Microscopy
6. Canadian Society of Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science (CSBBCS)
7. Canadian Society for Neurosciences (CSN)
8. Canadian Society for Microbiology (CSM)
9. Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology (CIFST)

Face to face meetings were held with the Executives of the Canadian Society for Zoology and the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology to encourage them to join CFBS. Both Societies sent delegates to participate in the advocacy activities held on May 17 and 18, 2000. A desire seems to be emerging among some of the Societies to develop closer links with the Federation. Contacts, by e-mail and by phone, with the President of CSPP resulted in their Science Policy officer joining us on May 17 for our "lobbying".

Discussions with John Reynolds (Immunology) indicated that their Executive has been considering rejoining the Federation, but no action so far has been taken. Vince Castellucci (Neuroscience) and George Harauz (Microscopy) have also been contacted. Both individuals indicated that they plan to discuss CFBS with their respective Executive members. Finally, CSBBCS have nominated individuals to lobby with CFBS. Discussions with Robin Floctin, E.D. of the CIFST, indicated that although their organization was interested in our activities the number of active researchers in their membership was small and a formal association with us did not seem appropriate. At the same time he indicated that they would be pleased to communicate with us on issues of mutual importance. The Microbiologists, at the moment appear not to be interested.

In addition, efforts have been made to interest the organization of Deans of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine in joining CFBS. The ED attended both a summer meeting in Guelph related to Agri-Food and The Annual Meeting of Deans of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Ottawa, April 28^th. They expressed genuine interest in our presentation but, at the moment, could not afford to belong to both CBHR and CFBS. We were encouraged to keep them aware of our activities especially since our Annual Meeting this and next year appear to be of interest to them.

Movement of some of the Societies listed above into the Federation may take place if we keep in contact.

In an attempt to involve the above Societies, we have recruited a number of their members to participate in our "lobbying" to give them a taste of what is involved. Members from the first three societies joined us in our recent visits and we have had responses from two concerning our Advocacy Document.

The Executive of the Canadian Society of Biochemistry, Molecular, Cellular Biology met shortly after the Strategic Planning Sessions and decided to continue supporting the lobbying activity of CFBS and will continue to provide $40 per ordinary member.

C. COMMUNICATION

1. Methods

To improve communication with our membership, a number of initiatives have been developed. These include the creation of a new Web-Site <www.cfbs.org>. This has allowed us to maintain contact with our membership by posting items of interests to the various Societies and their constituents. Reports of our activities including the Strategic Planning Session, reports of our science advocacy visits with decision-makers and their responses have been among the material presented (see appendix 3). The web-site has also allowed us to display the program for the Annual Meeting and to permit on-line registration.

Our web-site has also allowed us to more readily make contact with individual members through our web server. Making use of this, we have instituted "CFBS Alerts" which permits us to bring important issues to the attention of our membership.

At the request of several Societies the ED wrote contributions to Newsletters. These included the Newsletters of i) Canadian Society of Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology; ii) Canadian Society of Zoology; iii) Canadian Society for Plant Physiology, and iv) the Canadian Society for Toxicology (see appendix 7).

To interact with our scientific colleagues, we published in our "Call for Abstracts" an article " What CFBS

is Doing for You". This permitted us to up date our constituency with most recent activities. (see appendix 8).

To involve the Societies with CFBS’ activities and to improve communication, names of individuals were solicited from each Biological Society (some of which were currently not members of the Federation) who could be called upon to join in our advocacy activities. A number of Societies responded with names, some of which were involved with our May visits to Parliament (see appendix 9).

D. CANADIAN COUNCIL OF UNIVERSITY BIOLOGY CHAIRS

We continue to hold a contract with CCUBC for which we do their bookkeeping, send out their newsletter, organize their visits to Ottawa for "lobbying" and hotel accommodation. Last year we, at their request, evaluated the cost of the contract. The contract will again be renewed and will result in a cash return of $ 6,000.

On May 15th and 16^th, the CCUBC Executive came to Ottawa and met with CFI, Directors in the Department of the Environment and Department of Human Resources Personnel Development. In addition, they visited Peter Adams MP, Caucus Chair, Post Secondary Education and Research, David Anderson, MP, Minister of Environment and the Department of Industry. Visits were also set up for four of the Chairs to visit with their own MPs (see appendix 9).

E. CANADIAN INSTITUTES FOR HEALTH RESEARCH

In the lead-up to the legislation establishing the CIHR, the ED met with Henry Friesen, President of MRC to discuss how CFBS could help in the process. Subsequently, CFBS wrote to Allan Rock, Minister of Health to support CIHR’s creation. A response was received (see appendix 10) from both Allan Rock, Minister of Health and from Lynn Myers MP, Chair of the Caucus Committee on Health.

The Transition Committee (established for the transition from MRC to CIHR) contacted CFBS for names of individuals it would nominate for the CIHR Governing Council. Names were subsequently solicited from our Societies and subsequently submitted to the Transition Committee.

F. CANADIAN COUNCIL FOR ANIMAL CARE

CFBS obtained Observer Status on the Board of CCAC. The ED attended the Fall Board Meeting. Given the developments occurring in the area of "animal cloning" and use of animals in transfection experiments, we perhaps may see issues arise in this area although CCAC has not indicated this as yet.

G. CANADIAN CONSORTIUM FOR RESEARCH AND PARTNERSHIP GROUP OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

CFBS is a member of both CCR and PAGSE. The ED serves on the Steering Committee of CCR and in November took part in the "lobbying" activity of this group ( see appendix 11). Subsequently, this Spring and after the February budget, the ED also joined with others in this group to meet with Peter Herder, the new Deputy Minister of Industry. The purpose of this meeting and the meetings mentioned above on the week of May 15^th were to determine the Government's position on a number of issues in preparing the final draft of the CFBS brief. The interaction with CCR and with PAGSE allows us to develop more extensive support for the issues important to our membership. In the case of PAGSE attending their meetings and the organized lectures, " Breakfast With Eggheads", with MPs present, allows us an additional opportunity to speak to "decision-makers".

H. FINANCIAL HEALTH OF CFBS

The last year has seen a gradual improvement of the financial health of the Federation. This has been due, in part, from the constraint initiated by our Treasurer, Art Hilliker, the financial success of the Winnipeg Meeting resulting from the efforts of Judy Anderson and her colleagues and upon the efforts of those in Ottawa involved in setting up the Year 2000 meeting. This year we have approximately 40 sponsors for the meeting who have contributed generously. We are hopeful that the strategy of presenting themes in depth will continue to be an attractive approach to future meetings. It was also reassuring to learn that CSBMCB would continue to support our advocacy activities financially. Continued efforts are needed, however, to convince more of the Biological Societies to join the Federation. This should be a top priority for the coming year.

Finally, it should be mentioned that, the CFBS office moved twice during the past year (thankfully within the same building).

The move to new quarters was not at our instigation but resulted from space pressures from other clients within the building. The result, however, was that our rent has increased about 75% since we were previously getting a substantially reduced rate.

In all these, and the above activities we have indeed been fortunate to have Wafaa Antonious as our Office Manager. She has contributed greatly to the CFBS functioning and has always delivered more than could be expected of her.

I.Advisory Council

To enlarge the input to the CFBS Board on issues related to future scientific themes and issues that should be brought to the attention of "decision-makers", CFBS has initiated the establishment of a Council of "Advisors". Individuals appointed to this Council will have a high profile in their areas of expertise and should serve as a source of wise advice to the CFBS Board. A list of the individuals who have agreed to serve on this virtual council is presented in the appendix (see appendix 12). It has been agreed that contact with individuals on this Council will be made by e-mail and from time-to-time by phone when further information may be required. It is not designed to meet – at this time- as a standing committee.

It has been a pleasure working with Jim Fryer and the Board, the members of which have been dedicated to strengthening the Federation. We look forward to the future of CFBS with increasing confidence and have appreciated the contributions of those who have helped in making this last year successful.