ISHAM: International Society for Human & Animal Mycology

Many of you will wonder what on earth your Council does for you and ISHAM. Here is a summary of the current Council’s aims and achievements 
The current council set as its main priority tackling several recurring problems with the goal of creating a more streamlined, robust and efficient structure for future councils to be better able to represent the interests of the society.

  1. ISHAM is now re-registered under the new regulations as a charity in Switzerland. All council members are now registered as officers and the President, President elect, Treasurer and General Secretary are now officially recognised as Joint Signatories on behalf of the society. This will make the treasurer’s job and registration of future office holders easier. 
  2. The statutes and bylaws have been separated into two documents – the statutes proper which forms the legal basis of ISHAM and Operational Procedures that govern ISHAM’s business. These will be made available for the General Assembly of Members to ratify at the next ISHAM congress in 2015 in Melbourne.
  3. Oxford University Press (OUP) is now the publisher of Medical Mycology which will allow us to improve the journal’s standing and impact. The whole journal has had a makeover and will be in better shape to meet the future challenges.
  4. ISHAM is now the proud owner of a second journal Medical Mycology Case reports which is dedicated to case reports and is published by Elsevier.  The Editor in Chief, Oliver Kurzai and his team have already achieved a average time to first decision of only 12 days.
  5. A publishing committee has been set up consisting of the President-Elect as chair, the Editors-in-Chief of each journal and a liaison from each of the respective publishers.
  6. The website is about to undergo a major overhaul to make it more accessible and attractive to use. Membership fees should also be easier to pay and the website will offer various tools for the community to use e.g. the barcoding database
  7. The council has also undergone a major overhaul. VPs now have their own portfolio – Membership, ISHAM 2015, Working Groups, Website, International Affairs and last, but by no means least, council will seek ratification at ISHAM 2015 in Melbourne for the chair of Young ISHAM being formally incorporated into Council as a Vice-President.
  8. Council will make the minutes of its meetings available to members.
  9. ISHAM has now over 20 active working groups that drive developments in particular aspects of medical mycology.
  10. On your behalf, ISHAM has helped fund 5 international research symposia and conferences in the last 12 months alone.

 

We have by no means met all our goals but we are well on the way of achieving our ambition to secure a promising future for ISHAM in particular and the mycology community in general.

Website

Diagnosis – research resources