Dear EWRS members and friends,
I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a festive holiday season here at the end of the year!
Again, this year has not been an easy one, due to consequences of wars and their impact on global politics and economy, but the scientific life of our Society is recovering. We have still managed to have a fruitful year with many activities and positive changes in the society.
I would like to appreciate the increasing activity of all working groups, which are the core structure of our society. Six successful workshops were held in Antalya, Perugia, Rothamsted, Prague, Aveiro and Phuket, successful in the contributions of scientific programmes, new ideas and plans for the group, and the less tangible results of strengthening networks and friendships. While such meetings are vital to the health of the society, it is worth acknowledging the tremendous amount of work that goes into executing such meetings and we would like to thank all our colleagues who took a turn in organizing these meetings this year. Anyone who has spent much time in our society can express to our younger members how rewarding it is to contribute in this way for furthering our discipline’s research and your own career success. With regard to greater involvement in the society, I am pleased with the revitalisation of Biological control WG, which is a field of research that is becoming increasingly important in light of societal pressure on substitution of synthetic chemicals by environmentally friendly plant protection products and bioagents. Another seven WG events are planned for 2024 as specialised knowledge exchanges in the year before our regular Symposium which will be held in Lleida, 1-4 July 2025. Be on the watch for WG event updates and calls for papers on the website. The structure and activity of most WGs is now consolidated to the most relevant scientific issues with active participation and the discussion in SciCom meetings are rational with comprehensive outputs. One of the new useful programmes that SciCom is proud to introduce is the opening of 3 travel grants yearly for early career scientist for short-term internships in the lab of their choice. We look forward to reviewing many excellent applications to take this opportunity to increase networking within our Society and support the careers of our future leaders.
The management of the Society is now in the transition because of personal changes in many important positions in the Society structure. The most demanding task is a smooth transfer of the treasury and membership office after more than 30 years of excellent duty of our Treasurer and Membership Officer Dr. Ben Post. I want to thank him personally, and also on behalf of the generations of society officials and EWRS members who have had the privilege to interact with him. I am convinced that the experience of the current key officers, combined with the fresh ideas of the newly elected candidates, will establish a good basis for guiding the Society through the future challenges. Besides the administrative issues, a leading task for new EWRS management will be to empower the quality and ranking of the Weed Research journal, which is our family silver and financial resource for the society budget. I would like to encourage you to publish good research in WR, to promote it at different occasions, and also to invite other leading scientists to publish here. Systematic action will be taken by SciCom to achieve improvement in this area.
Finally, I want to congratulate all of the newly elected officials, especially our new Vice-President Illias Travlos for enormous support already in the first round, Silvia Fogliatto and Milena Simic for the positions of Additional Board members, Lena Ulber as the Board Secretary and Ahmet Uludag, our new Treasurer. I wish all of them success and personal satisfaction in all these important roles for the Society’s function and look forward to working with them on the Board for the next 2 years. With this all being said, I am confident to hand over the Presidency to Maurizio Vurro. I wish him good luck, and for the Society to flourish under his leadership! Thank you all for supporting me during my many years of service to the Society in various roles, for having an opportunity to meet a lot of inspirational people and cultures, and for the privilege to chair such a reputable scientific society.
May the coming year 2024 be full of health, success, happiness, and satisfaction for all of you!
Yours sincerely,
Josef Soukup
21st December 2023