
EACME General Assembly Meeting
11 September 2020 15.30-17.00 (CET)
Online Zoom Meeting
Minutes
- Opening of the General Assembly, welcome by EACME
Rouven welcomes all GA members. - Minutes
- No comments on the minutes.
- Richard’s library will be sent over to Barcelona, Borja Institut of Bioethics.
- Vacancy Executive Board Secretary – Kim Zandvliet has been appointed as the new
secretary. Until the end of 2020 Kim will work in parallel with Angelique and as of
January 2021 Kim will take over all tasks.
- Report of the treasurer
Financial report:
- Reminders were sent out to the centers that haven’t paid their membership fee yet.
- Another 20 full members and 6 or 7 associate members will pay their fee of 2020. Yet
another € 6000 of membership fees to come. - At the moment about 4, 5 centers in a critical position. Bert, as the treasurer will send
out a final reminder/warning and will try to phone the centers. - EACME has a stable financial situation
- Because of Corona less spendings were made on travel for the Bureau.
- The Bureau received feedback from the board in the Board Meeting. One of the
comments made by the board was that it would be a good idea to reduce the fee for
centers that are not able to pay the current fees. The Bureau will discuss this at the next
Bureau meeting. - Richard suggests to keep the finances stable and don’t increase the spendings, because
at EACME it all looks stable, but in the real world the situation isn’t stable at all.
- EACME Professor Paul Schotsmans Prize 2020 – 500 euro
- EACME receives the prize from Paul Schotsmans
- Next year there will be 2 Schotsmans prizes to give
- Selection procedure: 1. The Bureau members receive the applications anonymously; 2.
The Bureau members make a ranking; 3. Angelique compares the ranking - Three criteria on which the applications will be ranked: 1. Contribution to bio-ethics; 2.
Innovative; 3. Written in a coherent way. - In 2020 EACME received 40 applications
- Vote went to Nienke de Graeff from the Julius Centrum for Gezondheidswetenschappen
and Eerstelijnsgeneeskunde, department Medical Humanities, Universitair Medisch
Centrum Utrecht. The title of her thesis is: “Ending malaria with gene drive
technologies? A normative analysis of the role of humans in nature.
- EACME Collaboration Prize 2020 – 1000 Euros
- Only 2 applications, winner will receive the prize at the EACME webinar.
- Strategies to attract more members
- Discussion in Board Meeting if we should do more to strengthen the visibility of EACME.
One of the suggestions was to increase the visibility by appointing a social media officer.
- Internal communication
- EACME news – Who of the team receives the EACME news? They can either forward
them to their colleagues or can send the email addresses of people who have to be
added to the mailing list to Kim Zandvliet at k.oerlemans@amsterdamumc.nl - Newsletter editor – Caroline Brall of the Department of Health Sciences and Technology
at ETH Zurich will be the successor of Giles Birchley - Renewal editorial board – good to refresh the editorial board and to have new people on
board. - Website is up and running, received positive feedback
- Future meetings EACME
- 2021 Cluj-Napoca, Romania 9 -11 September 2021 (Maria)
The conference in Cluj will preferably be a live conference, but a backup plan for an
online version is needed. The cut of point will be decided in the Bureau. A workgroup
will be brought together to help Maria with the preparations for the conference. - 2022 Varese, Italy (Federico)
Varese will host the meeting in 2022. Still an open question what it will look like in
2022, online or live meeting. - 2023
Open for one of the GA members to host the 2023 conference. If none of the GA
members is able to host, Rouven can host the conference in Bern. - 2024 Halle, Germany
- Board elections
9.1 New Bureau
Rouven Porz will resign as president of the EACME. Ruth Horn has candidates for the
presidency and Bert Molewijk for general secretary. This has been approved by the Bureau
and the Board and the Bureau would also likes to get the approval of the GA. The GA also
approves.
There will be a vacancy for the role of treasurer. If someone is interested please send your
application to the Bureau.
9.2 Information about the election of the new Board members
- Insubria University Center for Clinical Ethics is the only associate member who applied
and therefor is reelected for this seat. - For the full member seats EACME received 6 applications where 4 seats are available.
- Each center has only one vote
- Each center can vote for max. 4 centers, because 4 full members seats are available.
9.3 Presentation of the candidates - The centers that applied for the full member seats present their center and their
motivation to become a member of the Board.
9.4 Election itself - Kim starts the vote in Zoom. Every center votes ones for max 4 centers.
Elected for a full member seat:
- Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania with
89% of the votes - Centre for Ethics in Medicine, University of Bristol, UK with 68% of the votes
(shared second) - Center for Medical Ethics, University of Oslo, Norway with 68% of the votes (shared
second)
4 Institut für Geschichte und Ethik der Medizin, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle –
Wittenberg, Halle, Germany with 63% of the votes
10.Other items
ECEN also cancelled the planned ECEN Open Forum Day from this year in September and
will plan an online webinar on Covid and Ethics Support in early 2021. The next ECEN Open
Forum Day, in September 2021, will be connected to EACME again.