The InterPore Council met in the beautiful conference venue of Hotel Albuquerque near historic Old Town on Sunday May 18, just before the official InterPore Annual Conference start in Albuquerque.  The council welcomed two new Council members on May 1, Linda Luquot and Marijn Boone, and appreciates Veerle Cnudde and Benoit Noetinger for their service on the Council which ended on April 30.

Our discussion was dominated by the low attendance to the conference due to recent global developments. We welcomed 473 in-person participants in Albuquerque whereas we planned for 700. This number is down by 40% compared to InterPore2024 with many people unable to join due to visa or funding issues. We decided to survey our community in an attempt to measure impact and inform any further action. Please take the survey: Academic Leadership in Times of Change | InterPore.  

We discussed InterPore finances and compared them to previous years/periods at every meeting, and while we built a reserve as an organization (pandemic has taught us the lesson!), the low attendance will impact InterPore budget as conference income directly funds our outstanding, dedicated staff. Shout out to Amy, Karolin, Laura, Margaret, Kristy and Sandra!

The InterPore Conference will be held in Nantes, France in 2026 and in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2027. To mark the 20th anniversary of InterPore, the 2028 conference will return to Europe. Bids to host InterPore2028 will be accepted until September 10, 2025.

The Council has elected Masa Prodanovic as the next Council Chair, effective immediately.

Since Karsten Thompson was in (delayed) flight during the scheduled meeting, we have tabled the discussion of the completed draft of strategic plan for our next meeting in September: stay tuned!

Lastly, we are writing this after the conference has concluded. While we missed those who could not attend, we were energized by meeting colleagues, old and new, in person and online.  We shared what we know and what we hypothesize and got inspired to pursue our scientific discovery with new energy. We shared the laughs, concerns, highs and lows, and we came together as a community stronger than ever.