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History
The Society right from the beginning was founded
in a spirit of internationalism, of conjoining researchers and scientists
from different European countries and overseas, from clinical and experimental
research and from various disciplines. The ESSR, formerly the ESES -European
Society for Experimental Surgery- was founded the 17th February 1966
near Nancy, France: 'La Société Européenne de Chirurgie
Expérimentale a été fondée le 17 Fevrier
1966 a l' Abbaye des Prémontrés a Pont a Mousson, près
de Nancy, France, au cours d'un Colloque organisé par le Laboratoire
de Chirurgie Expérimentale de la Faculté de Médicine
de Nancy'.
In the early seventies
it was felt that the term 'experimental surgery' was more and more inadequate
to describe the complexity of research in surgery. At the General Assembly
in Salzburg, 16th May 1974, it was decided to change the name of The
Society to 'European Society for Surgical Research' - ESSR.
In 1967 The Society
started out with 162 members, predominantly from France, Belgium, Italy
and Germany. As soon as 1970 the number of members had increased to
411. During the years there was a steady increase with a peak in 1995,
when the maximum with 769 members was reached. Between 14 and 27 applications
for membership and 2 to 4 written resignations reach the General Secretary
per year. According to the by-laws of The Society a number of members,
that could not be contacted or failed to clear their membership dues
for three consecutive years in a row were excluded from the membership
directory in 1996. On March 5th The Society has now 697 members from
43 different countries all over the world.
Aim
At that time this basic concept -namely to bring
together surgeons and engineers, immunologists and biologists and so
forth- was outrageously new and effective. Today the concept still is
valid, but the large number of specialist meetings, concentrating just
on one or two topics, seem to threaten the acceptance of a Society that
covers all aspects of surgical research. However, it has to be emphasized
that The Society has several outstanding features, that are not shared
by any other research society.
Besides
the multidisciplinary, multinational and -sometimes- multilingual aspects,
probably one of the most distinctive features is The Society's stress
on youth and the promotion of young researchers. There are age limits
not only for the president and the General Committee (45 years) but
also for the most prestigeous award of the Society, the Walter Brendel
Award (45 years). There are a varying number of Young Researcher Awards
per year (age limit 30 to 35 years) and finally the Student Award, especially
for undergraduate researchers presenting their work at the annual meeting.
Sister Societies
As early as November 1966 an agreement with the
British
Surgical Research Society (SRS, now SARS or Society of Academic
and Research Surgery) was established, so that the members of each society
could submit papers for the meeting of the other society and that the
members of both societies would be informed about the data of the scientific
meetings of each society. In 1968 another agreement between the ESSR
-ESES at that time-, the SRS and the Society
of University Surgeons (SUS) was reached on the organization of
tripartite meetings at regular intervals not exceeding 4 years.
The
first joint meeting of ESES, SRS und SUS took place in London, July
1969, the second in 1973. Since 1994 the General Secretary and the President
of SRS and SUS are invited to the annual congress of the ESSR and they
are given the honour to chair The Society's best session, the Walter-Brendel-Session.
Furthermore, the winners of the Patey Prize of the SARS and of the Walter-Brendel
Award of the ESSR are officially invited to give their presentation
at the coming congress of the sister society.
Source: http://www.essr.info
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