Presidential Address

A word from your president
Prof. Inge Broer

Since its founding, the ISPMF was blessed with brilliant Presidents, first and foremost the founder Prof. Julian Ma, followed by Prof. George Lomonossoff and last but not least my dear friend Prof. Ann Depicker. Now, with great pleasure and honour, I have accepted to step into these big shoes and become the President of ISPMF for the next two years. 

This is a small, but successful society. Plant Molecular Farming demands the integration of scientists rangin g from fundamental science to much applied research, universities and companies. During my whole career, the combination of basis science and application was my main interest. For me this means to enjoy the excitement of new findings, to solve problems and to benefit society directly with a solution. 

This is a great challenge, but I very much look forward to encouraging the Society towards these aims. To my great pleasure our board has been extended from 9 to 13 members. Fortunately many of the former board members were ready to continue so we can rely on their experience, but it is also exciting that a number of new board members come from the younger generation of ISPMF members, which augurs well for the future. I am very happy to welcome Pooja Saxena, Rima Menassa, Jennifer Stander and Sancha Salgueiro as new board members.






Together we want to use the advantages of the situation and get rid of the disadvantages of the pandemic. In the last two years we experienced many changes and challenges, not only in the world but also in our society. Some are negative, like the impossibility to meet in person, to develop new strategies just sitting together and chatting and getting to know each other’s gifts and talents better. I miss these meetings a lot. But there are also positive effects that came up with this situation. We had to develop new ways to meet and interact and actually our online meeting in 2021 was a huge success with more people joining, listening and discussing the presentations than ever. We have to evaluate the advantages, but also the challenges of hybrid meetings or the possibility to switch between online and face to face meetings. 

I am sure it will be a lot of fun to lead the society trough the next two years and to find new ways to communicate and interact also in times of the pandemic. It would be my great pleasure to receive any suggestions and questions you might have and to support you in every way possible.

Very kind regards, Prof. Inge Broer

President of the Society.
 
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