MINUTES

Minutes of the Business Meeting, Eskualduna Conference Centre, Bilbao, Sept 29, 2003

1. Welcome: The secretary welcomed the members.
2. 12 members present and 2 guests, no apologies.
3. The minutes of the business meeting in 2002 were agreed.
4. Report on Bilbao meeting:
   The secretary complains about the presence of few members participating to the business meeting. More effort must be done in the future to increment the member’s number. It was suggest that each member will try to enroll new young researchers. It is to be hoped to have ideas’ exchange throughout the year by e-mail. Common research projects have to be enhanced. The secretary will let known the possibility for a EU grant application.
   Adelina Pellicier and Klaus Børch had ended their terms. Marco Bartocci and Fernando Cabanas were elected. Giuseppe Buonocore and Nikki Robertson have two more years. Ursula Felderhoff has one more year.
5. No other business

Giuseppe Buonocore (secretary), Nov 11, 2003

Minutes of the Business Meeting, Batrix Building, Utrecht, Sept 6, 2002

1. 12 members present and 2 guests, no apologies. Please see list below for e-mail addresses.
2. The minutes from the Helsinki meeting were approved.
3. The secretary could not report of activity beyond the abstract selection. He had been unable to attend the ESPR council meeting in Geneva early summer.
4. 51 abstracts were reviewed. 48 (94%) achieved a mean score of 3.0 or more and were accepted. In no case was there serious disagreement on an abstract (a reviewer giving 5 or 6 to an abstract that would be rejected by the mean score, or a reviewer giving 1 to an abstract that would be accepted by the mean score). The need for transparency in the abstract reviewing process was stressed.
5. It was agreed to propose the following topics for mini-symposia to Adolf Valls-I-Soller and Hugo Lagercrantz:
   Neurodevelopmental outcome parameters- this is probably a topic suitable also for a half day work-shop or pre-meeting course.
   Brain damage and inflammation. Possible chairmen would be Olivier Claris, Henrik Hagberg &/or Pierre Gressens.
   Neonatal stroke and coagulopathy. Proposed chairmen were Francis Cowan, Paul Govaert, Nowek-Goettel &/or Jari.
6. Mats Blennow and Hans Ulrich Bucher had ended their terms. Giuseppe Buonocore and Nikki Robertson were elected. Adelina Pellicier and Klaus Børch have one more year, Ursula Felderhoff have two more years.
7. Mats Blennow had ended his term as B&D secretary. Giuseppe Buonocore was elected.
8. No other business

Mats Blennow, Sept 14, 2002

Minutes of the Business Meeting, Rhodos Palace, Sept 24, 2000

1. 10 members present and 6 guests, apologies 1
2. The minutes from the Copenhagen meeting were approved
3. The secretary could not report of activity beyond the abstract selection. He had been unable to attend the ESPR council meeting in Geneva early summer, to which all section secretaries had been invited this year.
4. 56 abstracts were reviewed. 46 (82%) achieved a mean score of 3.0 or more and were accepted. Mean scores for the reviewers were 3.3, 3.8, 3.9, 3.1, and 3.3. In no case was there serious disagreement on an abstract (a reviewer giving 5 or 6 to an abstract that would be rejected by the mean score, or a reviewer giving 1 to an abstract that would be accepted by the mean score).
5. It was agreed to ask Kari Raivio to accommodate a parallel session with the topic ’brain plasticity’ with 1 or 2 invited speakers and 2 or 3 selected papers from the submitted abstracts.
6. Fernando Cabanas and Gorm Greisen had ended their terms. Adelina Pellicier and Klaus Børch were elected in their place. Mats Blennow and Hans Ulrich Bucher were re-elected
7. Gorm Greisen had ended his term. Mats Blennow was elected.
8. No other business

Gorm Greisen (secr), Oct 19, 2000

Minutes of the Business Meeting, Copenhagen, June 1999. Twelve members present.

1. No apologies.
2. The minutes from Belfast were approved.
3. The secretary's annual report was approved.
4. For this year's meeting 52 abstracts were reviewed by the section council, 41 were accepted. In no case were there unacceptable disagreements among the reviewers. In 9 cases the ESPR-council participated in the review, since less than 4 section council members had given scores. This occurred mainly due to late submission of abstracts.
5. The topic 'Perinatal corticosteroid treatment - long term effects on the brain?' was chosen for the Rhodes meeting.
6. David Edwards was re-elected.
7. There was no other business.

Gorm Greisen (secr), June 30, 99

Minutes of the Business Meeting in Belfast, Sept 1998. Thirteen members were present.

1. No apologies.
2. The minutes from Szeged were approved.
3. The secretary's annual report was approved.
4. For this year’s meeting 36 abstracts were reviewed by the WG-council, out of which 28 got a score of 3 or more. One of these was referred to the ESPR council because of a variation in our scores exceeding 2 points, and 6 because only three of us were able to score. Furthermore, the council rescored 2 of the 8 abstract which we had given less than 3 points. One achieved 3.2 points and was accepted; one achieved 2.8 and was not. Altogether, 29 of 36 abstracts (80%) were accepted for presentation.
5. The secretary informed that the B&D-related subjects planned for the Copenhagen meeting are ‘vascular tone and reactivity - developmental aspects’, and ‘neonatal seizures - are they really harmful?’ The subject ‘the epidemiology of lost IQ’ is to be changed to ‘chronic viral infection - paediatric HIV’ as proposed by the WG-epidemiology. The secretary apologised for having forgotten the subjects proposed in Szeged. The list of subjects suitable for platform sessions with invited speakers was updated: Cell death, hearing screening, neuropathology, bilirubin toxicity, developmental aspects of brain chemistry, retinopathy, early diagnosis of brain damage, and animal models of perinatal brain injury. It was preliminarily decided to have ‘early diagnosis of brain damage’ on the year 2000 program. WG-members are hereby asked to propose speakers. The secretary will then inform Cryssa Bakoula, who organises the year 2000 meeting in Rhodes.
6. Clare Lis Faver and Flores Groenendaal’s terms had expired. Mats Blennow, Stockholm and Hans Ulrich Bucher, Zurich were elected in their places. Fernanda Cabanas and Gorm Greisen were re-elected.
7. Gorm Greisen was re-elected as the secretary.
8. Alfredo Garcia-Alix asked for institutions and programs which can receive somebody financed by the Young Investigators Exchange Program. Such a list is held by Patricia Hamilton. No other business.

Gorm Greisen (secr), Sept 15, 1998

Minutes of the Business Meeting in Szeged, Sept 1997. Fourteen members were present.

1. Gianpoulo Donzelli had faxed and apologized that he was unable to attend.
2. Minutes from Lyon, 1996 were aproved.
3. The secretary’s report (circulated in the annual mailing was approved.
4. For this year’s meeting, 34 abstracts were reviewed by four of the council mebers. In three cases one of the council members was a co-author, the review of these was passed on to the ESPR council. In no case did any reviewers score differe more tahn two points from the average and hence it was not necessary to discuss the scoring among the scorers. Twenty five abstracts were accepted. It was decided to try anony-mous abstract review next year.
5. Subjects/speakers for future meetings: David Edwards will approach Henry Halliday for a session on cell death at the Belfast meeting. Other subjects are hearing screening (Vineta Fellmann knows a Finnish psy-chologist who could speak), neuropathology of braon laesions, bilirubin toxicity, brain chemistry.
6. The constitution article 5.1 was changed from: ‘...The term is only valid for the respective position. Re-election for the secretary is possible for one more term.’ to ‘Re-election is possible for one more term. The term is only valid for the respective position.’ by 14 votes for and no vote against. This was to allow re-election of council members for 2 times 2 years, which actually already occurred last year.
7. Gianpoulo Donzelli’s term had expired. He had not indicated that he was interested in re-election. To widen the scope of the council's research interests David Edwards was unanimously elected in his place.
8. There was no other business.

Gorm Greisen (secr), Sept 5, 1997