Letter From the President
Dear IZFS Members,
Life is a balancing act, every day we are confronted by decisions where we project into the future trying to weigh the consequences of decisions made in the present. In the case of a group like the IZFS, decisions impact everyone, thus must be made with thoughtful consideration of all factors. Recently the Executive Committee made the decision to recommend to the Board of Directors that we do not take on the financial risk of planning the Strategic Conference for Zebrafish Investigators (SCZI) in 2023. The decision, made based on not only the factor of high costs but also a short time window, was subsequently approved by the Board of Directors (November 4th 2022).
But not to despair, we have a smorgasbord of international meetings to choose from in the coming two years including but not limited to: Asian Conference on Fish Models for Diseases, (Jan. 30 – Feb. 2, 2023, Yogyakarta/Borobudur, Indonesia); European Zebrafish Society Meeting (July 9-13, 2023, Krakow, Poland); Strategic Conference of Zebrafish Investigators (SCZI: Jan. 6-10, 2024, Asilomar, CA, tentative); International Zebrafish Conference (IZFC: July 12-17, 2024, Kyoto, Japan, tentative).
The IZFS is directly involved in the planning of the Strategic Conference of Zebrafish Investigators, 2024, and the International Zebrafish Conference, 2024. Thus we have initiated a more in depth analysis of costs based on the Asilomar California site where we have previously held the SCZI Meeting and the results are important: we anticipate overall costs will be 20-30% higher in 2024 than they were in 2019.
Faced with rising costs worldwide and a scenario where for thirty years United Nations Climate negotiations have never mentioned eliminating fossil fuels in decisions (the primary cause of global heating), perhaps the dream of some zebrafish scientists to create a more collaborative schedule, offering fewer meetings per year, will come true. Currently we are initiating meetings with other scientific societies to discuss how we can combine resources and at the same time reduce our impact on the natural world.
My best wishes,
Kate