Chinese Life
Scientists Society in the UK Annual Report
(2008-2009)
Qihe XU, MD, PhD
On behalf of the
CLSS-UK committee
(Approved by the
CLSS-UK committee on 12th Sept 2009)
The fiscal year of 2008-2009 has
passed swiftly. In the past year, we
enthusiastically conducted reconstruction of our
society with profound success, while facing the
extraordinary challenges brought to us by the
worldwide economic recession courageously.
Before packing up the past year, we would like
to express our sincere gratitude to all members
of the Society (CLSS-UK), its Committees, its
Academy (ALSC-UK), as well as its Advisory Board
for their passionate and ever-increasing support
to our Society in the past years. It is our
concerted efforts that have enabled us to
overcome difficulties with both courage and
strength and it is just because we work together
as an individual entity we have a good reason to
looking forward to a more beautiful future.
This report summarises the work
of CLSS-UK in the past year and will try to put
up a few suggestions for the upcoming CLSS-UK
committee.
Part 1. Summary to The Fiscal
Year
1.
Reconstruction of the Society
1.1 Preliminary
Membership Database:
Coordinated by Dr. Zhidao XIA, a
majority of the committee members were actively
involved in collecting and updating the
information of our members. After all the
information being processed and sorted by Dr.
Xin FANG, a database of around 1500 members has
been initially established. A mailing list
extracted from this database has been applied to
several important areas including cascading
newsletters and informing forthcoming
activities.
1.2 New-blood
Committee Members:
In order to inspire more members
to engage in the organising activities of the
Society, the committee has been always open to
members. The committee has organised a few
recruitments open to the public and has
attracted a number of capable new blood
committee members. Not only
do
these open recruitments bring fresh air and
energy into the committee, but also they
lay a solid foundation for the next
committee by providing a rich pool of talents.
1.3 CLSS-UK
Annual Award:
The Annual Award has been
established to reward committee members who have
made outstanding contributions to the enabling
and organising work of the Society. The number
of awardees and the way of awardees being
rewarded are decided by the Chairman and
awardees are to be nominated and voted by the
Chairman group (comprising Chairman, Vice
Chairmen and Secretary-general). The Annual
Award for the 2007-2008 fiscal year went to Dr.
Hongwei ZHANG, Dr. Xuebin DONG, Dr. Hongwu MA,
Dr. Youli HU and Dr. Honggang ZHOU. The Annual
Award for the 2008-2009 fiscal year went to Dr.
Hongwei ZHANG, Dr. Xuebin DONG, Dr. Hong YUE and
Dr. Honggang ZHOU.
1.4
Website Maintenance and
Updating: Since Dr. Hongwei ZHANG was
authorised to thoroughly revise the Society
website 2 years ago, he has consistently
uploaded Society Announcements, Society News,
etc onto the website in a timely manner so that
the website has become a truly reliable window
for us to serve our members. It has also become
an indispensable platform for us to carry out
our fundraising and strategic partnership
programmes.
1.5
Society and Committee Newsletters:
Dr. Xin FANG was responsible for
informing members and committee members of our
activities and events, job opportunities and
providing commentary on recent research
breakthroughs on a regular basis. This important
work has ensured that our members and committee
members are well informed and has greatly
enhanced the integrity of the Society.
1.6 Academy
of Life Sciences for Chinese in the UK (ALSC-UK):
Under the leadership of Prof. Mingqing DU
and organised by Dr. Mingqiang ZHANG, the
Academy held a work conference in Cambridge in
this April and actively discussed the directions
for the future. An Academy webpage has been
established on the CLSS-UK website to provide an
internet platform for communications and
interaction among Fellows of the Academy,
members of the Society and the outside world.
Through a very strict nomination and selection
procedure, the second group of altogether 8 new
Fellows have been officially elected in this
fiscal year, bringing the total number of ALSC-UK
Fellows to 31 at present.
1.7 Elections
of CLSS-UK Chairman and ALSC-UK President:
Through nomination within the CLSS-UK committee
and a ballot by the standing committee, Dr.
Xiongzhong RUAN is elected Chairman of CLSS-UK
for the next term. Through nomination and voting
by ALSC-UK Fellows, Prof. Qingbo Xu is elected
President of ALSC-UK.
2. Society
Activities and External Affairs
2.1 Strategic
Partnership and Fundraising Programmes:
Dr. Qihe XU and Dr. Xiongzhong RUAN, among other
committee members, led the programmes in order
to embrace collaborations and communications
with governmental, charitable and academic
organisations and industrial entities. In
addition to renewal of existing partnership with
the Education Section and the Science and
Technology Section of the Chinese Embassy in the
UK, Chinese Students & Scholars Association in
the UK (CSSA-UK), Suzhou Biobay, Suzhou
Genepharma, Invitrogen, PeproTech, Promega, VWR,
Tebu-bio，Cancer
Research UK and GSK, we have established new
strategic partnerships with Anachem, Fermentas,
Insight Biotechnology, AbD Serotec, EU Chinese
Journal and Money TT. Through these partnership
programmes, we have raised a fund of ~8000
pounds.
2.2 The
2nd North UK Life Sciences Symposium Held in
Glasgow:
Following the success of the 1st
North UK Life Sciences Symposium held in 2008,
in order to promote the communications among the
members in the North UK, the Society supported
Dr. Hong YUE and her colleagues hundreds of
pounds to host the 2nd North UK Symposium on the
4th July, 2009 in Glasgow. More than
40 members gathered from Scotland and Northern
England to attend the symposium. The University
of Strathclyde in Glasgow has kindly offered
free venue and Shanghai University of Science
and Technology kindly sponsored 100 pounds to
support the symposium.
2.3 The
15th CLSS-UK Annual Conference Held
in London:
The organising committee led by Dr. Xiongzhong
RUAN and Dr. Shiyu YANG took the responsibility
of hosting the 2-day conference (12th-13th
September 2009) at University College London (UCL).
Academic symposium of excellent standard, the
CLSS-UK committee meeting, meeting of ALSC-UK
Fellows were intercalated with face-to-face
“Meeting the Experts” sessions and around 10
national and international bio-pharmaceutical
companies, together with XINHUA News Agency and
other authoritative public media attended the
meeting. This year we once again adopted a
combination of self-sponsorship to a generous
CLSS-UK scholarship programme. In particular, we
reserved ~8000 pounds to support the meeting and
to enable as many as possible members to attend
the conference. This annual conference, as
expected, has once again broken records in terms
of numbers of all attendees, attending ALSC-UK
Fellows and attending strategic partners, as
well as the quality of oral and poster
presentations. UCL kindly offered free venues
for this meeting; EU Chinese Journal and Money
TT kindly offered free printing and binding
services for all meeting materials.
2.4 Supporting
the CSSA-UK China60 & Mid-Autumn Festival Gala
(London):
In order to celebrate the 60th
Anniversary of the People’s Republic of China
and the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival and to
further strengthen the strategic partnership
with CSSA-UK, we sponsored 300 pounds to the
organising committee of the gala. The mutually
beneficial collaborations between the two sister
organisations have set a good example for future
collaborations between Chinese communities.
2.5 Public
Press Release:
With effort of Dr. Honggang ZHOU, CLSS-UK
continues to publicise its activities and events
in newspaper, websites, forums and many other
routes and this has earned reputation for the
Society. XINHUA News Agency, EU Chinese Journal
and Chinese Business View reported the 15th
CLSS-UK Annual Conference on site.
3. Finance
of CLSS-UK
In the past year, our finance has
achieved a balance of income and expenditure,
with some cash available to the next committee.
This has financially supported the sustainable
development of the Society. For further
information about the financial status of the
Society, please refer to the CLSS-UK Annual
Financial Report (2008-2009) drafted by the CLSS-UK
Treasurer, Dr. Xuebing DONG. The report has been
approved by the CLSS-UK Committee on the 12th
September 2009 too.
Part 2. Suggestions to the Next
Chairman and Committee
The year 2008-2009 is a vital
turning point for our Society, as it is the
election year for both CLSS-UK and ALSC-UK.
Although we have achieved some successes in the
past year, there are still many difficulties and
challenges ahead. Taking this opportunity, the
departing Chairman, Chairman group and committee
would like to provide the following suggestions
to the forthcoming Chairman and Committee.
1.
To further improve the CLSS-UK membership
database and liaison channels: This will enable
us to keep as many as possible members informed
to exercise their rights and responsibilities
and to involve as many as possible of them in
CLSS-UK activities and events.
2.
To further improve democracy, regulations and
rules of the Society so that the Society can
move to a more professional destination.
3.
To continue to support the development of the
ALSC-UK and the CLSS-UK Alumni’s Association in
China.
4.
To give emphasis to seminars, regional events
and activities to serve our motherland China, in
addition to Annual Conferences.
5.
To further develop the strategic partnership
programme to increase social impact and
fundraising channels.
6.
To further improve the CLSS-UK website and
newsletters to increase transparency.
7.
To apply for charitable status when the right
time comes.
(Translated by Yannan Jin)
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