The European Respiratory Society plans its future: the 2013-2018 strategic plan

The European Respiratory Society (ERS), in order to serve better its members and achieve its mission objectives (table 1) [1], organised a Strategy Meeting to plan its core strategic priorities for the period 2013–2018, taking into account changes occurring both within the society and within the respiratory field in Europe and beyond. This meeting was held on July 3 and 4, 2013 in Lausanne, Switzerland to formulate future directions. We took into account the Executive Summary of the 2006–2007 Strategy Meeting [2] summarising the ERS pillars (fig. 1) and the recently published ERS Presidential plans as an operational guide [3–5]. View this table: Table 1– Objectives and means of action of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Figure 1– The three pillars of the European Respiratory Society. The Strategy Meeting involved the ERS Leadership represented by the members of the Steering Committee (fig. 2). It was prepared by an ad hoc meeting preceding the event, involving the Past President and the Secretary General Elect (the officers designated to act as chair and moderator), as well as the Executive Director and the Head of the Executive Office. This was used as the starting point to develop the strategic meeting agenda. Participants were encouraged to express their opinions freely and to think “outside the box” in order to bring fresh ideas to the table. Whilst the focus of the exercise was definitely the future, the importance of the past as the basis of all change was emphasised by the presence of the former Executive Director who attended in an observer role to recall the history of the ERS and previous decisions. Figure 2– The European Respiratory Society Strategy Meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland. Operational minutes discussions were first drafted to allow an accurate summary of the decisions taken, which were then approved by the Steering and Executive Committees following ERS regulations. As it was felt that …