President´s Address 2009
Welcome to EBSA - the European BioSafety Association!
EBSA is a non-governmental, non-profit and independent association. It is becoming a recognized platform for knowledge and expertise within the field of biosafety and biosecurity and there are many important activities on our agenda for the year to come. At the same time, it is clear that EBSA has outgrown its costume and it is time for consolidation before enrolling in new undertakings. EBSA has reached a cross-road and the next couple of years will be decisive for the shape of the association.
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EBSA has grown fast during the past year – 52 new members (18 %) - we are now 339 individual members from 25 European countries and 7 non-European countries and we have 23 corporate members. The conferences have also grown to around 300 participants in Florence and now recently in Stockholm, where also the pre-conference workshops were well attended and appreciated. Next year we will go to Ljubljana in Slovenia with the conference, thus hoping to raise awareness of biosafety in that part of the region.
We have an increasing number of consultations from stakeholders such as the European Commission, WHO and EBSA allied organizations as well as requests for professional support from young biosafety associations. We have a number of large projects in front of us; the development of a biosafety professional curriculum will take off in the fall, it is proposed that we participate in the development of a guidance document to the Laboratory Biorisk Management Standard CWA 15793, we have to follow up on the European Commission CBRN policy document on biopreparedness and there is a proposed participation in new EU project(s). Domestic affairs e.g. up-grading and maintenance of the website, communication and liaisons with allied organizations all need enforcement. In addition to our longstanding working groups for ongoing undertakings we are planning to form task groups with a clear goal, mandate, deliverables and timeframe for defined projects which will be announced on the Newsletter and on the website.
Please come and join us in this endeavour. EBSA needs all its members to fulfil its tasks. Contact me , any council member or
We certainly have a full agenda for the next year. Nevertheless, I want to bring up another question and that is ´better biosafety´ as it was named in the recently developed business plan. Are we doing enough to control biorisk? Are we doing the right things? Is there evidence to underpin the often very costly control measures that are required in regulations? I find these questions a big challenge for EBSA and it will take time to get some answers, but it is a road that has to be pursued. I am looking forward with excitement to my year as President.
Dr. Ingegerd Kallings
EBSA President 2009-2010
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