Swiss Society of Plant Biology
· In 2023, we had our annual SwissPLANT meeting in January. The meeting starts with the General Assembly of the Society and is followed by 2 days of science talks. The important novelty in 2023 was that SwissPLANT was preceded by a one-day Early Career Meeting. Our young colleagues had lively and exciting scientific discussions together. Thanks to the generous support of SCNAT we could cover the cost of this Early Career Meeting for all participants. Most of them also participated to the SwissPLANT meeting to which they brought an excellent spirit, contributed to a great poster session, and gave two selected talks (chosen by the participants of the Early Career Meeting). For the early career scientists, this was a very important networking event.
· We are running again as a regular society with contacts with the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) and its Biology Platform.
· The Swiss Society of Plant Biology held its annual symposium «SwissPLANT» from January 23-25 in Les Diablerets. The Early Career Meeting took place from early afternoon January 22 to lunchtime on January 23 at the same place. The SwissPLANT scientific committee consisted of Basel University members: Klaus Schlaeppi, Thomas Boller, Jurriaan de Vos, Ben Engel, Günter Hoch and Sabine Rumpf supported by Sylvia Martinez. 72 scientists met to present and discuss current research advances in plant sciences in Switzerland. The meeting offered excellent opportunities to interact and network with peer plant scientists. The full program is available here: https://swissplantscienceweb.unibas.ch/en/events/past-swissplant-conferences/
· The Swiss Plant Microbe Interaction (SPMI) network continued to operate after its establishment during Covid times. The SPMI-network is an interest group of many scientists of that society that unify in their interest on the topic of plant microbe interaction. The networks functions with the participating scientists sharing their seminar (invited guest) talks online to the SPMI-community. The information on these shared online presentations is distributed via an email distribution list hosted by Joelle Schlaepfer and Klaus Schlaeppi (sign up: support-pmi@unibas.ch).
· The Swiss Society for Plant Biology has resumed its membership to the Federation of European Societies of Plant Biology (https://fespb.org/). Christian Fankhauser participated to Plant Biology Europe 2023 in Marseille, a meeting organised every 2 years by the Federation of European Societies of Plant Biology (FESPB). At this meeting Christian Fankhauser also attended the FESPB committee business meeting and accepted to audit FESPB accounts.
· SwissPLANT2023 was preceded by a one-day Early Career meeting with 25 participants. All attendees presented a talk and a poster. They selected 2 talks for presentation at the SwissPLANT meeting. The meeting was greatly appreciated, and it made SwissPLANT2023 particularly lively. We are looking forward to organize such an event again combined with SwissPLANT2024.
· At the end of June 2023 our longtime coordinator Sylvia Martinez retired and currently we operate without administrative support, which is a challenge.
· Mailings to all members of the Society (primarily done by the President of the SSPB)
· Maintenance of our website (https://swissplantscienceweb.unibas.ch/en/) that posts research portfolios, news, events, and job openings in plant biology research is now done by Prof. Klaus Schlaeppi who officially joined the board of the SSPB in January 2024. The website hosts portfolios of ~120 researchers focusing on plant science in Switzerland.
· Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences: Etienne Bucher (Agroscope) contributed his expertise for the elaboration of an A+ Fact Sheet «RNA-based technologies for agriculture and environment».
· These SSPB members currently participate as Board members in the SCNAT Forum on Genetic Research: Didier Reinhardt (U Fribourg), Bruno Studer (ETH Zurich), Sebastian Soyk (U Lausanne).
· SSPB member Roman Ulm (U Geneva) is a board member of the SCNAT Biology Platform.
· In order to raise awareness for plant biology, the Society maintains a website that regularly features news and events that are also aimed at the interested public. > https://swissplantscienceweb.ch
· Various outreach activities are organized by Plant Biologists from our Universities. We currently can’t offer additional support from the society itself.