News: ABSPIE recent initiatives

Since 2015, the European Alliance of Medical and Biological Engineering and Science (EAMBES) started a stable collaboration with the European Institutions and in particular with the European Parliament through the establishment of the first European Parliament Interest Group on Biomedical Engineering (EPIG BME).

 EAMBES is advocating for an increased involvement of biomedical engineers (BMEs) in defining European regulations and forthcoming research frameworks.

The EAMBES, together with WHO and EPIG BME, have organized a new meeting in the European Parliament to discuss those topics (European Parliament, 11th of October 2018). The draft agenda is below and the latest will be available at https://goo.gl/VMVbMG

This event will bring the BME community inputs, thought the most influential BME representatives form 4 continents (i.e., Europe, USA, Africa and Asia) via their scientific associations: the International Federation of Medical and Biomedical Engineering (IFMBE), International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP) and their umbrella organization the International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine (IUPESM).

The topics of the meeting will be two:

· How to maximally profit form the BME community inputs while design the forthcoming European framework for research (i.e., Horizon Europe)

· How to harmonise international regulation on medical devices and medical setting across these continents.

Five European Parliament Members will participate to the meeting, including Madame Neena Gill (S&D, West Midland representative at the Euro parliament for the Labour Party, UK), Lara Comi (EPP Vice-president from Italy) and Nicola Caputo (S&D, Italy), EPIG BME President.

From the European Commission, Mr Bernd Rainer (DG Research) will attend the meeting.

Ignatius Gomes, Secretary General of the “African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of States Organization” will also participate to the meeting to discuss Africa-related BME topics.

The Warwick Biomedical Engineering (WEB) group, in the School of Engineering, is a proactive member of the EAMBES and had a key role in the organization of this event. Dr Leandro Pecchia, WEB member drafted the agenda as Chair of the EAMBES public affairs working group and General Secretary of the IUPESM.

From 2015, Dr Pecchia along with the European Alliance for Medical and Biological Engineering & Science (EAMBES), the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE), Heatlh Technology Division and WHO, supported two MEPs: Nicala Caputo and Lara Comi in tabling a parlamentary question to the European Commision to recognise Biomedical Engineering profession.

Today, a step more towards the BME recognition... BME has been included in the ESCO database.

Dr Rossana Castaldo, recently awarded her PhD in biomedical engineering, has been awarded the William James Award 2018 by the Institute of Engineering and Technology for her work on fall prediction in hypertensive patients via short-term Heart Rate Variability Analysis recently published on IEEE journal of biomedical and health informatics.

The IFMBE is an NGO in official relation with WHO. As such, it is called to participate to the WHO General Assembly (GA) and provide inputs presenting amendments, according to the WHO GA Agenda. The IFMBE delegates to the WHO is Prof Marc Nyssen, IFMBE Treasurers, which prepare amendments, collecting inputs by IFMBE AC members and Division Chairs. HTAD Chair Dr Pecchia participated to this discussion and to the drafting of the IFMBE amendments. This year was particular important as the draft of the WHO thirteenth general programme of work, 2019–2023”.

Two amendments were presented.

The International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences (IUPESM) is the umbrella organization for the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP) and International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE). This union is regarded as the world scientific society for biomedical engineering and medical physics and federates more than 100 national societies from all the 6 continents, and the main transnational societies such as IEEE EMBSor EAMBES.

Each 3-years, the IUPESM organizes the World Congress on Medical Physics & Biomedical Engineering, which this year was in Prague (WC2018).

This was the first time that the University of Warwick was so well and successfullyrepresented in this important event!