Blog listing

As the UK’s Covid-19 Inquiry has finished hearing evidence and is starting to issue detailed reports on its various modules, there is an opportunity to reflect on the contribution that members of the Microbiology Society made to the national effort.   

Sewage spills have worsened in recent years, leading to severe and widespread pollution of UK waters [1]. This has rightly drawn significant public attention, with communities expressing outrage at the damage to their local environments and the risks to their health. As a result, sewage and other wastewater pollution have become firmly established on policymakers’ agendas. 

The Microbiology Society has submitted evidence to the UK Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) inquiry into antimicrobial resistance (AMR), highlighting key challenges and recommendations for strengthening the UK’s response to this growing global crisis. The Society’s response was informed by the views of its members and the wider AMR community through its ‘Knocking Out AMR’ project.

In September, the Microbiology Society attended the United Nations High-Level Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance (UN HLM on AMR). The meeting was a critical opportunity for world leaders to come together and commit to clear, new targets and practical steps to tackle AMR. Here, we highlight how the HLM represented a major step forward in knocking out AMR, but still fell short in some key areas. 

Are you based in Scotland and interested in science policy? Would you like to volunteer your expertise and contribute to decision-making? The Microbiology Society is looking for a member to act as our representative on the Scottish Cross-Party Group (CPG) on Science and Technology.

In this episode of Microbe Talk, Policy and Engagement Officer Katie chats to Dr Tina Joshi and Dr Catrin Moore, the Microbiology Society members leading on the Society’s brand new antimicrobial resistance (AMR) project, Knocking Out AMR. In this episode, Katie, Tina and Catrin talk about what the new project is, how it came to be, and how people can get involved.
 

In this episode of Microbe Talk, our Policy and Engagement Officer Katie chats to Sir Paul Nurse, Director of the Francis Crick Institute and former President of the Royal Society. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of protein molecules that control the division of cells in the cell cycle and has since received over 70 honorary degrees. In this episode, Katie and Paul talk about the importance of collaboration and co-working in science, and discuss the UK’s recent re-association with Horizon Europe, the EU funding programme for research and innovation.

The latest edition of the Microbiology Society’s podcast, Microbe Talk, is now online. In this episode, our Policy and Engagement Officer Katie chatted to Professor Hilary Lappin-Scott OBE, President of the Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS), about her career so far, the importance of collaboration in science and our recent re-association with Horizon Europe.