The EMGO annual report 2006 has been distributed

A few weeks ago the EMGO 2006 annual report (see http://www.emgo.nl/) has been distributed. The publication of this report was a bit later than in earlier years, also because of the change in management of the institute. The annual report gives a comprehensive overview of EMGO's research infrastructure, input in terms of people and budget, and of its output and accomplishments in terms of publications, grants and societal impact. If you want a copy of the annual report, please send an email to secretariaat.emgo@vumc.nl.

This annual report was the first that I had the pleasure to send out as the new director of EMGO. But since I was only appointed on April 1 2007, I had no responsibility for EMGO's 2006 output and accomplishments. Therefore I can easily brag about EMGO's success in 2006: over 400 international publications, more than 40 doctoral theses, and many millions in grant money obtained. This provides a very good point of departure for establishing EMGO's future (5-10 years) policy in the coming fall. A policy discussion within the EMGO institute has already been launched to establish EMGO's priorities for the years to come. The results of this discussion will be documented in a policy plan that will be discussed on the EMGO 2007 policy day, November 2, 2007.

ISBNPA 2007 evaluation results

June 21-23 the annual meeting of the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA, http://www.isbnpa.org/) was held in Olso, Norway. ISBNPA is a research society, so evidently we did some evaluation research to evaluate what the participants thought about the conference program, venue, social events, et cetera. The Executive Committee (EC) of ISBNPA (see the picture of the EC) and the organising committee of the next annual meeting (which will be in Banff, Canada, also see a picture of three members of the local organising committee, chaired by professor Wendy Rogers, the lady in the middle). Information on the Banff ISBNPA 2008 conference can be found at http://www.silvanesti-enterprises.com/isbnpa/. Banff is a fantastic town: in the middle of the Canadian Rockies and easily accessible from Calgary International Airport. The conference will be at a very nice venue (see http://www.rimrockresort.com).

As I reported here before, the conference in Olso was well-attended, we had a record high number of over 500 participants. The evaluation indicates that the conference was also generally well-appreciated. 75% of participants found the conference very good to excellent, and only 2.4% found ISBNPA 2007 'poor'. Especially the keynote presentations and symposiums were well appreciated. Most negative remarks were about the food offered during the conference: too few vegetarian options! Good food taking diet-preferences into account is of course of utmost importance at a conference on behavioral nutrition and physical activity, and we will certainly take this into account next year in Banff.