VPH Institute: successful General Assembly on Sept 17th in London

The meeting was chaired by the VPH Institute President, Prof Denis Noble, who welcomed the Assembly and presented the new members of the Board of Directors.

The meeting had both the scope to inform the membership of the activities undertaken by the Institute during its first year from the incorporation and the purpose to present the new goals the VPH Institute will concentrate on in 2012/13.

The Executive Director, Prof Marco Viceconti, who opened the session on “Report of the activities for year 2011/2012”, was happy to announce that the governance model the Institute put in place has demonstrated to be efficient and that with the current fee model the Institute is 100% financially viable. He presented in summary the major achievements of the past year:

• The brand development and the communication services
• The activities of the Work Group on Bridging Physiome & Systems Biology, International context
• The establishment of a Policy Affairs Work Group
• The creation of an Editorial Board for the development of the VPH presence on the web

All these topics were then explained in details by the people in charge.

During the second part of the meeting, Marco Viceconti presented and requested the membership approval on the business plan for the upcoming year. Some major activities were proposed:

• Web presence: Biomed Town and VPH Portal, a detailed plan on how to sustain the implementation of the current Biomed Town portal and develop a more structured presence of the VPH on the web, through the VPH Portal www.vph-portal.eu

Some innovative ideas were proposed such as  the creation global ID for all members and the development of repository for all digital resources to share among the community.

• VPH conference series: considering the upcoming end of the VPH Network of Excellence project, the VPH Institute has taken over the ownership of the VPH conference series. A bid process for VPH2014 was approved and will now be circulated to the VPH community at large.
• VPH Study Group: the VPH Community needs an educational event to address young VPH researchers and the Institute plans to co-finance its organisation in parallel with the VPH Conference with a sum up to €25,000. A more detailed plan will be shortly elaborated.
• Call for Supporting Action onin silicoclinical trials: the VPH Institute will participate to this specific call, with the goal to establish of a pre-competitive industrial partnership on ISCT. Every member will have the possibility to participate to the Consortium.

The General Assembly demonstrated its interest and support for all the initiatives presented during the meeting: it is now time to roll up our sleeves and make the most out of it!

We will keep you posted on the developments!

All the General Assembly presentationscan be found here.