EMEAC-IFCN: New Year News
Dear Colleagues and Friends,
We thought that New Year is a good time to update you on the work we are doing for the Europe, Middle East and African Chapter through ExCo.
Firstly we should not forget 2019 and our Congress in Warsaw. Thanks are due to ExCo members and to our local colleagues for their work to make it such a success. Congresses are usually every two years, so you might think that we are now fallow for 2020 in this regard. But Jonathan and Hatice have already met the excellent local team behind Marseille ECCN1 2021 to see the congress facilities, which are very good and in an amazing position at the head of Marseille Vieux Port. Put it in your diary now; 30th June to 3rd July, 2021.We pass our congratulations to Professor Antonio Martins da Silva on being re-elected asMember-at-Large with responsibility for Africa and we look forward to the coming election for our third Member-at-Large, with this one being giving responsibility for our website presence and for developing social media. In the past Members-at-Large have not had a portfolio and we hope the new arrangements will enhance ExCo’s work for the Chapter. Our website, we realise, needs attention. But the IFCN in which is sits is being redeveloped and once that is done we aim for an enhanced, more up to date website for the chapter.Last year IFCN ExCo attended one Egyptian Society Congress and Jonathan also attended another. In addition, the Moroccan Society meeting attracted a number of Francophone delegates from West Africa and was helped by a number of speakers from our French Society. ExCo, IFCN and our own chapter’s ExCo hope to continue to develop training for African colleagues in the coming years.
For some years ExCo, EMEAC has been attending meetings of the European Brain Council in Brussels, a body which aims to assist in developing research areas and funding within the EU and wider European areas. As a result we have been recognised as one of its member societies. In March of this year there will be a large scale meeting to consider the next stages of funding at which we are planning to have a good team representing Clinical Neurophysiology, with research priorities including epilepsy, degenerative diseases and pain.
ExCo, EMEAC has also collaborated with the European Academy of Neurology to put on a symposium at the Paris Congress on Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation, with an all-star cast from our members. All who can get to Paris are urged to do so, (https://www.ean.org/paris2020/6th-Congress-of-the-European-Academy-of-Neurology-Paris-2020.3833.0.html).
May we remind you of the Scholarships for Trainees we are offering and which we announced just before the break? They are part of our work on Training and Practice, together with the surveys and curriculum work which we hope to finish this year too. The scholarships are a one-off initiative for the moment, since our funding is so small, and we hope to follow the successful candidates to determine how effective our investment will have been. This may also be useful in beginning a possible longer term goal, EMEAC Training Centres to which trainees from national societies without full educational opportunities may be able to attend for short periods.
We hope to make some more announcements in the near future.
With best wishes for 2020,
Jonathan Cole, Hatice Tankisi, Antonio Martins-da-Silva, Ivan Rektor and Anita Kamondi,
ExCo, EMEAC-IFCN
January 2020.
1. Though we are proud to use our wider chapter designation of EMEA Chapter, for the moment we thought we might retain the Congresses as being ECCN, since EMEACCN is a long title.