Dear Colleagues,
It's my pleasure to address my third message since I was the EWRS President. The second semester of the year has been again a dense and active period for the Society and its active members, confirming its revitalization and the newly increased interest of the public in weeds and their management.
As you certainly know, the central event for EWRS next year is our Symposium, now in its 20th edition. Its organization is now entering the most important phase, which includes the abstract submission, by the welcomed participants, the definition of the sessions and programme, by the Scientific Committee, and the organization of all the logistic needs (meeting spaces, welcome party, gala dinner, excursion, website, side events, advertisements, etc) by the Local Organizers and the Communication Team. All groups are working heavily and enthusiastically to ensure the event's success, and it will be.
The wide interest in the event is also shown by the presence of many scientific sponsors, that will contribute to its success. Finally, three outstanding scientists have been invited as keynote lectures. Now, it is your turn, to submit abstracts (by the end of January), register, and start organizing your attendance. We have also planned to produce a Special Issue of Weed Research, our Journal, soon after the Symposium, by inviting the authors of some of the most interesting and intriguing speeches and posters to submit their results in an article. This will certainly greatly impact the Journal and generate attention to authors and their scientific activities.
As already announced in my previous message and advertised in our Newsletter and website, we have launched a new initiative called ‘Travel Grants for Bilateral Cooperation 2024’, to support, with the EWRS funds, the visits of three young researchers to European Research Institutes, to start or complete research activities. We have created a committee for application evaluation. In the first call, seven applications were submitted, and three young researchers were supported with a contribution of 2,000 euros to travel abroad. Considering the interest and the success of the first call, we have decided to continue this type of support in the next year, with a new call. So, please check the website and read the Newsletter to be updated.
Concerning our Journal, Weed Research, in the last year we have witnessed a slow reduction in the number of both submitted articles per year and published articles. Many initiatives started to support it, and many changes were planned. First, the Publisher, Wiley, is introducing changes in its policy and organization, creating a new team structure to strengthen support for authors, partners, and editorial teams. Moreover, a new system - Research Exchange – will be progressively introduced for all journals, including ours, as a new unified and improved publishing journey on a single platform, that should guarantee an easier process for the submission of the articles, and a faster management of their revision and publication. The Journal will continue to be hybrid, meaning that both OA and APC articles will be published, but the tendency is to slowly move to complete Open Access. From Society’s side, as announced, we have created the ‘Task Force’ to support the Journal. The group met and discussed internally, and with the EiC and the Wiley team, how to help the Journal. The organization of a higher number of special issues (on specific subjects or occasions of important events), the involvement of the Working Groups, the revision of the Editorial Board’s members and structure, more continuous interactions among publisher, EiC and task force, the attractions of high-quality reviews of top scientists, the invitation to all members to publish in Weed Research, and the collaboration with other Scientific Societies to widen the interests of the Journal, seemed to be some of the strategically most important and urgent actions to take.
Another important part of the Society we are trying to improve is the Working Group activities. Some WGs have a new coordinator, some will have one next year, and some organized very successful and fruitful meetings in 2024. This has also increased the number of members, now well over 400. WGs plan to organize other events soon, including brief meetings during the main symposium, next year. Moreover, WG coordinators will also play an important role as session chairs in the symposium.
Another crucial change made during the year was the Board Composition. According to the EWRS rules (see the constitution on the Website) we should periodically renovate the board composition. This regarded the replacement of the Secretary (Lena Ulber) who has perfectly taken her voluntary and elected position, and Roland Beffa, the new Treasurer (elected and for free, he too), still in the transition to replace the previous one. This latter change is particularly important and difficult because there are several different commitments, some of which need to be taken by a professional team. We are also very keen on the EWRS expenditure, trying to reduce some excessive administrative costs, and rather favor more ‘scientific’ activities.
We had Board meetings a few days ago in Antalya (Turkey) where many crucial aspects of EWRS management, briefly presented above had long been discussed. The results of those meetings and an updated picture were then presented at the General Assembly organized online a few days ago. Please visit the Website, read the Newsletter and link to the social media (EWRS have Facebook, LinkedIn and X profiles) to stay tuned, and be active in forwarding the Society’s news to your connections, to help the Society be known.
Finally, next year will also be the 50th anniversary of the EWRS establishment, and we plan to worthily celebrate this important event.Should you have any suggestions or ideas, please contact us by the different communication channels.
With this positive feeling for the future of the EWRS, I wish all the best for the coming holidays and the New Year to you and your loved ones, with the hope that science can give a little example of friendly relationships regardless of racial origin, sex gender or political ideas.
Kind regards
Maurizio
16th December 2024