Your Society: Spring - a season to reflect and look forward

Published: 30 Mar 2022
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As I write this month, I’m aware of a strange mix of emotions; with spring arriving, there is hope for a more positive and vibrant year than those of late, but there is also sadness and concern about world events.

With that in mind, I would like to start by reflecting on the ongoing war in Ukraine and pause to think about our members and those within the wider pharmacological community who have been affected directly by the conflict. The Society and its Journals published a statement on the situation in Ukraine which you can read here. We are here to help those in our community whom have been affected, and I would urge you to contact me or my Society colleagues if there is anything at all that we can do. You can reach us via email or via our Community platform, where support is available to you from members all over the world. Our thoughts are with you during this incredibly difficult and unsettling time.

The situation in Ukraine feels terrifying for those of us watching from afar, and I’m sure that for many of you, it puts life into perspective. But it some ways, it also gives me renewed vigour to do the best I can for our members and for society, and to that end, I would like to highlight some our recent and current positive and uplifting activities.

I must start by congratulating all the Prescribing Safety Assessment students who sat their exams in February. You will know your results by now, so I wish you the best and want you to know that we are proud of and impressed by your commitment and hard work. And for those of you considering the PSA for next year, the Society is here to help - we have plenty of PSA Prep materials to support your learning.

Elsewhere, it’s invigorating to see that our working life is beginning to feel like ‘business as usual’ as we emerge from the pandemic, and a perfect demonstration of that in March will is Council’s first in-person meeting since the outbreak. We will also soon see the start of committees reuniting in person, while at the same time, taking advantage of our collective accelerated digital adoption, by providing hybrid facilities to ensure we truly live our accessibility and sustainability values. We will only meet in person when necessary, acknowledging that the virtual environment can provide many opportunities to meet, discuss and ensure our members globally can input into their Society wherever and whenever they are.

Planning is also ramping up across the Society for World Congress of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology in 2023, led by Professor David Webb, Congress President and Professor Amrita Ahluwalia, Congress General Secretary. We are delighted to have launched our Early Career Researcher Pharmacology Logo Design Competition and will soon be launching a fundraising campaign – keep your eye out for more information on the latter. The winning design will be featured in promotional items across WCP2023, and I’m delighted to say that the proceeds from sale of these items will support the participation of early career researchers at the Congress. In further developments for the event, our refreshed WCP2023 exhibition and sponsorship prospectus is out, and we would love you to share it with any organisations and individuals who may wish to partner with us.

Also in the pipeline at the moment is our Annual Review for 2021. It’s been heartening and rewarding to put it together, and to look back at all the achievements that have given us such a strong foundation for this coming year and beyond. We are just three months into 2022, but I already know that we are successfully building on last year’s outcomes and aligning with the key priorities described by our new President, Professor Clive Page, in his first blog.

So with all this in mind, rest assured that I and my team are looking forward to Spring and all it brings; we hope that you too remain safe and well, wherever you are in the world.

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Rachel Lambert-Forsyth

Rachel is Chief Executive of the BPS and responsible for delivering the vision, mission and strategy of the British Pharmacological Society, and its subsidiary companies. Rachel is also Managing Director of BPS Assessment Ltd.



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