PRESIDENT'S LETTER

Sleepless in Seattle

Roger Hangarter

On the basis of my own experience, the excellent scientific program combined with the Seattle venue made Plant Biology 2005 a great event. We can thank the ASPB Program Committee (chaired by Edgar Spalding); Jean Rosenberg, the associate director of meetings, marketing, & membership; and the many ASPB staff who worked so hard to make the meeting run smoothly for the participants. Sleepless in Seattle seems to be an appropriate description of how most of the ASPB staff experienced the meeting. Of course, the success of the meeting was also due to the excitement provided by the nearly 1,700 plant biologists in attendance, which made it one of our largest meetings ever. In spite of the many other attractions Seattle had to offer, attendance at the scientific sessions and workshops seemed to be at an all-time high. Highlights of the meeting are described elsewhere within this newsletter.

Now that my term as president of ASPB is ending, I will try to summarize some of the major activities that occurred during the year. Fortunately for me, there were no major crises to deal with. Instead, we were able to use the year to build on the many changes that were implemented during the previous few years and to devote time to looking forward. In the previous issue of the ASPB News, Crispin Taylor, our executive director, summarized a strategic planning meeting we held; you can look forward to more details as plans are set in motion. I am pleased to say that the Society is in very good shape, primarily as a result of the selfless contributions of the membership and the dedication and professionalism of our staff.

Our journals, which serve as the core of ASPB, continue to do very well. The Plant Cell continues to retain its number one position in the impact factor rankings among all plant journals. Plant Physiology is close behind with its highest ranking ever. The entire collection of Plant Physiology from 1926 has now been digitized and is available at PubMed Central. As the publishing industry continues to face the Open Access push, ASPB has worked to stay ahead of the curve, and over the next few years we can expect to see changes from our Publications Division that will keep our journals at the forefront.

The ASPB Committee on Public Affairs continues to monitor the funding situation for the plant sciences. This has been a particularly critical year since the federal budget deficit is putting unprecedented pressure on all federal granting agencies. In addition, changes in the staff at the DOE Energy Biosciences Program left this important program particularly vulnerable. The Public Affairs Committee mobilized a major effort, with assistance from a large number of ASPB members, to turn the tide in favor of maintenance of this critical program for plant research and to quickly replace the program staff. The Public Affairs Committee will continue to monitor the situation, and we are hopeful that by the time you read this column the DOE Energy Biosciences Program will be back on track. In addition to the challenges facing DOE, NASA recently suspended funding of fundamental life science research to follow President Bush’s “vision” to send humans to the Moon and Mars. Without NASA’s fundamental life science program, research on plant responses to gravity will be severely compromised in the coming years since other agencies are not likely to devote their resources to research that NASA had taken ownership of until now. With funding rates falling below 10 percent for many grant programs, waiting in silence for the government to recognize the problem is not a viable option. For plant research to remain strong, it is more critical than ever for scientists to become more involved in speaking out in support of science research. The Public Affairs Committee can use your help and can help you get involved.

Some highlights of the two Executive Committee meetings in Seattle include moving the highly successful Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program from an exploratory Good Works project to a recurring part of the ASPB portfolio, accompanied by an increase in the number of SURF awards available. The Executive Committee also voted to create a new Fellows of ASPB award to be given in recognition of distinguished and long-term contributions to plant biology and for service to the Society; the first fellows will be announced in 2007. The final piece of the “Ethics in Publications” series was also approved. This document, prepared by the Publications Committee, defines ASPB’s procedures and policies for handling allegations of publisher or staff misconduct. With this final document in place, ASPB is the only Society I am aware of that has established such a comprehensive set of ethics policies. The ethics documents are available on the ASPB website at http://www.aspb.org/publications/ethics.cfm.

In case you missed or somehow managed to sleep through the meeting in Seattle, you might be interested to know that on October 1, Mike Thomashow became president, I became immediate past president, and Rick Amasino became president-elect. Also, Nick Carpita became secretary and chair of the Program Committee, and Karen Koch joined the Executive Committee as an elected member.

Roger P. Hangarter
rhangart@indiana.edu