President’s newsletter: June 2024
Dear BTS Members,
I promised in my April newsletter to update you on the Annual Strategy meeting of the Executive Committee (EC) which took place online on May 8th. You may remember that I said we would have an opportunity at the meeting to update and revise our existing 2020-2024 Strategy to take us into the period 2024-2028.
I would like to thank my EC colleagues for a very productive and engaging meeting where we worked both in plenary and in three virtual break-out rooms to co-create our new Strategy built on our existing Vision “driving excellence in toxicology” and Mission “to provide the principal forum for toxicology in the UK, to support and enrich the careers of toxicologists, and to promote the importance and advancement of toxicology in the wider scientific and lay communities.”
After the meeting, a sub-group worked on a format for our new Strategy which we hope will not only be easier to read than a traditional document but also clear in its purpose of providing a strategic framework for both our existing activities and possible new initiatives that would bring benefits to our members and external stakeholders. Here is a link to the new Strategy.
I am pleased to confirm that next year’s Annual Congress will again be held at The Spaces at the Spine in Liverpool, but please note that the Congress will be held from Wednesday to Friday, April 2nd to the 4th. I should like to thank Ian Copple, the Scientific Sub-Committee and our EBS colleagues for all their work in securing the venue and most importantly in responding to the constructive feedback we received in the post-Congress questionnaire. The feedback was very positive about both the content and organisation of the meeting but there were a few issues raised, for example with the Congress dinner and the poster presentations, and you will see in due course that some changes will be made in light of the feedback from our members to further improve the Congress experience in 2025.
You may have seen some recent communications from the BTS Skills Gap Initiative. The Steering Committee and Advisory Board have now announced the launch of the first of a series of training modules ‘An introduction to the principles of regulatory toxicology: present and future’. This training module, which is aimed primarily at early career regulatory toxicologists in government and industry, will consist of six 2-hour webinars followed by a final in-person full-day workshop. This is an exciting development which is fully supported by myself and the EC and, for those who are interested, more details can be found on the BTS website.
Finally, I should like to thank Kirsti Hornigold and Haz Matar for accepting an invitation to attend the Societies’ Day at GSK on June 5th where they were able to successfully showcase the work of the BTS to employees and students on work placement.
I am delighted that we had this opportunity to reach out to members of the toxicology community who may not have engaged with the Society before and potentially to recruit new members. It would be great if we could do something similar in other centres of toxicology (resources permitting, of course) so do let us know if you have any thoughts on where we might be able to do this with your help. Please contact me by email at president@thebts.org .
My next President’s Newsletter will probably be published in September so I would like to wish
everyone a good summer and I hope you have good weather if you are planning to take a holiday!
Best wishes to you all,
Phil
Dr Phil Botham
President of the BTS
