Federation of European Microbiological Societies
The Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS) is an umbrella organization of European microbiological research institutions and organizations. It consists of 46 members from a total of 36 countries.
The current president is Bernhard Schink from the University of Konstanz . The central office is located in Delft in the Netherlands .
history
The first European amalgamation of microbiological societies was the North-West European Microbiology Group (NWEMG), founded in 1968 , which was geographically limited to Northern and Western Europe. Before this merger, microbiological societies were united under the umbrella of the European Biochemical Societies (FEBS).
In 1973, with the financial support of the Society for General Microbiology (SGM), a preliminary meeting for the foundation of FEMS was held in Paris . Representatives of 13 interested companies were present at this meeting, 9 of which agreed to found FEMS. The rules of procedure were set up on the basis of the FEBS, the office was set up at the SGM. A provisional steering committee was established for the first official meeting, which organized the meeting in August 1974 and invited all European microbiological societies to attend. On November 22nd, André Lwoff , 1964 Nobel Prize in Medicine , was elected President of the Association.
In August 1976 the Society's first symposium with the main topic " Photosynthetic Prokaryotes " took place at the University of Dundee in Scotland. In November and December of the same year, another one on " Gonorrhea " at the Zoological Society in London and one on "Exotic and resistance plasmids" at the Pasteur Institute in Paris followed . Since then, several symposia have taken place every year, in 2001 there were a total of 15, which were supported with amounts between 6,000 and 12,300 euros.
They have been presenting the Lwoff Award for Microbiology since 2000 .
financing
Financing is based on membership fees as well as income from publications and events of the society.
Publications
The association edited the journal FEMS Microbiology , which originally appeared as a single title. Today the society publishes five individual titles:
- FEMS microbiology letters
- FEMS microbiology reviews
- FEMS immunology and medical microbiology
- FEMS microbiology ecology
- FEMS yeast research
Originally the publications were distributed by Elsevier for the society, today they are run by Wiley-Blackwell .