Dear ESB Member,
This edition of the regular Newsletter has a new format and updated content.
Inside, you will find important updates ahead of the General Assembly that will take place in Edinburgh and the link to vote for the new Council members!
We look forward to seeing all of you in Edinburgh.
Enjoy the read!
Bernardo Innocenti,
Chair of the Publication Committee
President Message
Dear ESB members,
As initiated last year, we send you this newsletter in the form of a report from the various committees to give you an overview of the Council activities over the past year. The goal is to give more time during the General Assembly to discuss current and future actions with you. During the GA, only a few highlights will be presented, we will also ask your opinion on specific topics through short surveys and we will take the time to answer your questions about the detailed activities described below and your suggestions for the ESB activities.
We hope that this method of communication will be more effective and more participative.
I would like to thank the members of the Council and the ESB members participating in the committees for their involvement in the organization of the ESB. In addition to the fundamental tasks (memberships, congress organization in collaboration with the local organizers, awards, students’ activities, communication towards our members, scientific communication) a great deal of time have been devoted to developing the ESB actions, for the benefit of the ESB members.
Council reorganization
After the setup of numerous new actions last year, we have this year reorganized the tasks and the role within the Council to make everything manageable in the future. The goals of the reorganization were:
- to reduce the workload (by distributing the tasks, the addition of Deputies for the Awards and the Treasurer, the help of an assistant, and in some cases the addition of Committee members);
- to define who could do the job in case of absence of one of us for personal or professional reasons;
- to redistribute the tasks in a more logical way due to the new actions defined along the previous years;
- to assess whether the tasks could be done by a new council member.
See the summary of the new organization PDF – Reorganization.
Council elections
We have received an impressive number of Twenty-One applications for the five ESB Council positions that will become vacant in July 2024, highlighting the interest in shaping the future of our society.
Voting will take place online, and the voting system is open until Monday July 1st 2024, 23:55 CET (see details in the section of the Secretary General).
Your vote is essential!
World Congress of Biomechanics 2026
We have started discussions with the organisers of the World Congress of Biomechanics in 2026 in Vancouver to jointly organize this event.
Stay tuned, we will give you more details in the next months on this specific event, where we should celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ESB!
I hope you will enjoy reading the following sections, and I look forward to seeing you in Edinburgh and in particular at the General Assembly on Tuesday 2 July !
David MITTON
President of the European Society of Biomechanics
Updates from the Secretary General
The minutes of the previous General Assembly held at ESB23 Congress in Maastricht can be found here: PDF – Minutes.
The list of new ESB members since the last GA at ESB23 in Maastricht is attached (324 new members of which 122 active, 201 students and 1 corporate members) here: New Member List
A vote for block ratification of all new members will take place during the GA at ESB24 in Edinburgh.
Voting for the ESB Council seats
We have received an impressive number of Twenty-One applications for the five ESB Council positions that will become vacant in July 2024, highlighting the interest in shaping the future of our society.
Voting will take place online, and the voting system is open until Monday July 1st 2024, 23:55 CET.
In order to vote you have to be in good standing and you can vote following this procedure:
- Go to the ESBiomech website: https://esbiomech.org/
- Login as a member clicking on “Member Login” link in the bottom left of the page
- Click “My ESB” at the top of the page (in red) and select ‘Voting’ to cast your vote, or ‘Council Elections 2024’ to find out more about the candidates
- Review the candidates’ applications and profiles (for each candidate there are links to their professional institutional or personal page, applications forms and CV)
- Please select at least ONE and up to FIVE candidates from the Twenty-One applicants. In order to give continuity to the ESB council we encourage the members to vote those standing for a second mandate.
- The ESB President will present the results at the General Assembly at ESB24 in Edinburgh.
NOTE: The electronic vote is secret. Once you have voted, the system does not allow to identify you. For security reasons, once you have voted, you will not be able to access the electronic voting procedure again. As long as you do not cast a vote while navigating the website, you can access the electronic voting system as many times as needed.
Small update membership routes
The ESB council has decided to discontinue the membership route where applications are made after the participation at an ESB congress as a non-member and for which the membership fee is covered by the congress registration fee. This membership route generated a very large amount of work while generating only very few long-term members, and probably contributed to the number of ESB members not in good standing. We believe that if a non-ESB-member who participated in the ESB congress would like to join the ESB after the congress, they should be motivated enough to pay the ESB membership fee.
Questions for the Council
If you have any comments, suggestions and questions related to these documents please do not hesitate to contact us at secretary.general@esbiomech.org. Also please use the same email address to let the Council know if you have any questions or discussion points you would like to see addressed at the GA in Maastricht.
Enrico DALL’ARA
Secretary General of the European Society of Biomechanics
Updates from the Treasurer
You can find the PDF with the treasurer Report, with an overview of the financial status of the ESB till 31/12/2023 and the Projections of 2024, at this link: Report_Link .
Dieter PAHR
Treasurer of the European Society of Biomechanics
Updates from Diversity, Inclusion and Membership Committee
Actions
This year has seen a flurry of diversity and inclusion actions by the Society, with the support and help of a newly constituted committee. A thank you to Anitha, Astrid, Elena, Laura, Linda, Magdalena, Marta and Zimi for their engagement this year!
We welcome new members on a rolling basis so please contact membership.chair@esbiomech.org if you want to contribute!
With a continued successful mentoring program, the Society now provides mentors to 50 early stage & early career researchers. A large thank you to the numerous volunteers who provide mentoring to our members!
We have prioritised gaining the views of our members to develop new actions, with a survey open for consultation to help us develop a sustainable diversity and inclusion plan.
Please complete the survey at https://forms.office.com/e/Zzfbiarkgm. More on initial results at the GA.
We have initiated a participation fund to better support diversity at the congress.
While it was announced late and did not attract eligible applications, we hope this will provide necessary support in the future for our members who encounter additional costs to congress participation – https://esbiomech.org/the-esb-congress-participation-inclusion-fund/
Finally, a reminder that new applications are now reviewed only at specific times of the year – no exception applied https://esbiomech.org/membership-application-review-timeline/
This year, we introduce a “Diversity in Biomechanics” session at the congress, expanding on the previously successful “Women in Biomechanics”.
Please join us and our speakers on the Monday 01/07 https://esbiomech2024.org/diversity-in-biomechanics/.
If you wish to contribute to the panel discussion about “visibility of diversity in Biomechanics”, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Marlène Mengoni at membership.chair@esbiomech.org.
See you all at that session!
Membership Data (data from 10/06/2024, not including latest 36 applicants)
As of June 2024, the ESB has a total of 1430 regular members, of which 607 are students (42%; same proportion as June 2023). The total membership is relatively diverse with 519 women (36%; +1.5 points since June 2023) and 13 members preferring not to disclose (+5 since June 2023). The student body drives diversity (44% women).
Figure – gender distribution of all ESB members (June 2024)
Figure – total of regular members, with gender data when available (June 2024)
The ESB membership currently demonstrates a relatively healthy geographic spread, with members from all continents and located in 57 different countries (1233/1430 members work in Europe). The largest representation is from Italy, followed by the UK, Switzerland and Germany (respectively 247, 212, 109 and 101 members). Together, these four countries represent 47% of our members. The ESB is honoured to have one member in each of the following countries, together representing 1% of our members: Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Estonia, Iceland, Lebanon, Malaysia, Malta, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tunisia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and Uruguay.
Marlène MENGONI
Chair of the ESB Diversity, Inclusion and Membership Committee
Updates from the Publication Committee
Since ESB 2023, five newsletters were prepared and sent to the ESB members:
- September 2023;
- November 2023;
- January 2024;
- April 2024;
- June 2024.
Bernardo INNOCENTI
Chair of the ESB Publications Committee
Updates from the Meetings and External Affairs Committee: ESB23.
Michele CONTI
Chair of the ESB Meetings and External Affairs Committee
Updates from the Meetings WebPortal Committee:
Looking forward to the 24 Perspective Talk presentations planned at the ESB 2024 Congress, providing a high quality overview of state of the art in diverse research topics and setting the scene for regular presentations in the tracks!
Following the extended visibility option established at ESB 2023, authors of accepted poster presentations at ESB 2024 were invited to submit a video pitch to explain the content of their research. Stay tuned for these videos becoming available soon on the ESB Youtube channel and through the conference app! We encourage the presenters to add QR-code based links to complement their posters.
Peter VARGA
Chair of the ESB Meetings WebPortal Committee
Updates from the Education and Student Committee:
We are super excited to meet everyone in Edinburgh! Check out the following student activities that we are planning and organizing to ensure you make the most out of Edinburgh 2024 (https://esbiomech2024.org/student-events/):
Meet the Biomechanics Experts
Date: 1st July, 2024, 13:00
Would you like to ask advice to research experts of biomechanics on how to succeed in becoming an independent scientist or how to manage work-life balance?
Would you like to know more about their current research, or what are their next scientific challenges?
Don’t miss the Meet the Biomechanics Experts mentoring session!
On Monday July 1st, have your lunch with a senior researcher and discuss informally in small groups about research and/or career.
Night in Town for Students
Date: 1st July, 2024, 19:30
Join us for a relaxed evening tailored for Master and PhD students!
Engage filled with networking, games and music in a unique venue showcasing tradition and architecture.
Enjoy drinks and snacks, meet new colleagues, and reconnect with friends in a dynamic atmosphere.
Pre-courses:
Date: Sunday 30th June, 2024
ESB 2024 interactive pre-courses are mainly addressed to graduate students, post-docs, and young researchers and cover the following topics: interpreting joint motion patterns, digital image correlation, machine learning in computational biomechanics, constitutive modeling of soft tissues, constitutive modeling of hard tissues. Registration is needed.
Organization of ESB webinars
- November 14th 2023. “Python II – Automated execution of python scripts for medical image processing and bone FEA” by dr. Dieter Pahr; YouTube views: 156
- March 18th 2024. “Blending your science: an introduction to Blender for upgrading your figures” by Adrián Seijas Gamardo; YouTube views: 189
- May 29th 2024. “Physics-based modelling and machine learning synergies in human heart modelling” by dr. Mathias Peirlinck;
The recordings of all webinars can be seen by subscribing to the ESB You Tube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/ESBiomech
ESB socials: many followers and counting!
- Twitter: 2735 followers (ESBiomech), 260 (ESBcommunity) (https://twitter.com/ESBiomech and https://twitter.com/ESBCommunity)
- ESB Youtube: 1180 followers; some videos >5000 views
- LinkedIN: 1074 followers (https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-society-of-biomechanics/?viewAsMember=true)
- Instagram: 251 followers (https://www.instagram.com/esbiomech/)
Do you know of a repository, software or conference interesting for the ESB community?
Do you want a job to be advertised? Let us know!
ESB mobility award
The ESB mobility award has been improved in the past years in order to attract more applications and better tailor to the need of the ESB members. A small recap, the award now has two categories:
- starting: a mobility award to start a new collaboration;
- strengthening: a mobility award to strengthen existing collaborations.
Importantly – the mobility award is now also open for postdocs!
More information regarding, requirements, eligibility and selection procedures can be found here:
https://esbiomech.org/student-section/esb-mobility-award/
Aurélie CARLIER
Chair of the ESB Education and Student Committee
