From the Chief Executive

During 2017, the Microbiology Society will need to replace its existing strategy, which has served us well for the past five years, but which will soon expire. As we do so, we will not focus on producing a document full of jargon that we bury deep on the website where nobody reads it. Instead, we want to capture the ambition, energy and enthusiasm that you have, as members of the Society, for the diverse and beautiful range of microbes that you study, and for the ways in which you can develop your science, apply it to real world challenges, and communicate about it to specialist and non-specialist audiences.

Over the period of the current five-year strategy, you will have seen some impressive developments at the Society. A new journal, Microbial Genomics, which is attracting first-rate science and is already indexed on Medline and PubMed. Policy work that is attracting the attention of politicians from the United Nations to national funding agencies. The biggest Annual Conference ever, as well as a whole host of Focused Meetings and Society-Supported Conferences covering every aspect of microbiology. New grants and resources to support your careers, and an Early Career Microbiologists’ Forum to ensure that our efforts are directed towards furthering your careers. And a profile outside the discipline which means that we get a million hits a year across our website and other digital platforms.

At the same time, there have been many changes to the way the Society’s staff work, and these may have been less obvious to you. We moved the office to Charles Darwin House, where we share our facilities with other like-minded societies. We have changed all sorts of things about our financial processes and HR policies, which you as members will not notice but which make it easier for us to spend more of our time supporting your interests. And we have put in place all sorts of mechanisms for making sure that Council, Committees, Divisions and the staff are collectively focusing on the things that matter to the membership.

So as we look to build a strategy for the next five years, we are in an extremely strong place to think really ambitiously about where your Society goes next. The Society’s vision is A world in which the science of microbiology provides maximum benefit to society. If you watch the news or read the BBC website you will see that every day, there are stories about emerging diseases, new techniques, novel treatments and fresh discoveries that show just how much interest there is in microbiology and just how many medical, environmental, economic and other advantages we can deliver to the public through our subject.

So as we embark on refreshing the Society’s strategy for the next five years, I am keen to speak to you about your ambitions for the organisation. I want to hear about what you think will be the focus of the next few years, where you think the staff should be directing our efforts, and what you want us to achieve together. We can have a big impact through a combination of the Society’s resources, the unique depth and breadth of your microbiological knowledge, and the complementary skills of the staff. One of the great strengths of the Microbiology Society is its friendly, supportive and collaborative nature, meaning that every member – from undergraduate to Nobel laureate – can feel comfortable contributing to that endeavour.

So please let me know what you want the Society to accomplish in the next five years – and think big. The scale of the opportunity is huge and it is matched by the dedication of the staff, and the enthusiasm of Council, the Committees and Divisions. What we choose to do collectively for the next few years is limited only by our imaginations, so please do not be shy. Ring me, email me, invite me to come to your lab, and tell me where you want us to go together and what you want us to achieve.

Peter Cotgreave

Chief Executive
[email protected]