2019 Annual Report by the ERA-EDTA Officers on behalf of the Council

The officers of the European Renal Association – European Dialysis and Transplant Association (ERA-EDTA) (Carmine Zoccali, President; Ivan Rychlik, Secretary- Treasurer; Danilo Fliser, Renal Science Chair/Chairman of the Administrative Offices; Ziad Massy, Clinical Nephrology Governance Chair/Chair of the Registry and Denis Fouque, Editor-in-Chief of NDT - “Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation”) together with the entire ERA-EDTA Council are very pleased to present this report on the activities of our Society, essentially regarding the past year (2019). We are very pleased to confirm that during the last year all the ERA-EDTA activities have been very successful and active, furthermore 2019 was yet another good year also for the financial consolidation of the Society.

We cannot start this report without mentioning the terrible pandemic that has so much touched all of us, our profession, our patients: ERA-EDTA is in the frontline by delivering useful information for all its members regarding Covid through a dedicated section on our website furthermore dedicated webinars have also been organized and, finally, but even more importantly, we have decided not to cancel our annual congress but to continue in a fully virtual manner so that all our members can still take advantage of the science, education and networking opportunities in a complete safe and easy manner.

2019 was a very active year and the ERA-EDTA Council worked hard to give the members the opportunities to learn, teach, perform research and publish their publications. A new and important decision that was taken by Council in 2019 is related to becoming a member of the BioMedical Alliance in Europe: together with more than 33 other medical Societies we will have a chance to make the voice of nephrology heard in Europe especially concerning research, but also education. In fact, some of our key officers are involved in special task forces: one related to CME activity in Europe the other one related to clinical trials.

Governance is another important matter that Council has actively addressed in 2019 and, after many years, with the essential contribution of the Association’s lawyers, a new Constitution was presented and approved for the 1st time, by the General Assembly: this new Constitution is totally compliant with all current Charity laws and more effective for the current needs of the Association. The Association also optimized its accountancy system by outsourcing it to professionals: the result is an immediate savings for the Charity, while having an excellent and professional service.

Our sister Journal, CKJ (Clinical Kidney Journal) finally received its first Impact Factor in 2019 (close to 3) and for this we wish to thank the current Editor-in-Chief, Alberto Ortiz for his great efforts.

Still in 2019 a new initiative was launched, the SEID (Scientific and Educational Interaction Day): a competitive call for the programme was made among all ERA-EDTA Committees and Working Groups and an exciting programme was created after a careful evaluation by the SAB (Scientific Advisory Board), furthermore important brainstorming sessions were held among the various ERA-EDTA Committees and Working Groups to encourage common projects and optimize efforts both for scientific as well as educational proposals.

In 2019 the first long term fellowship was granted to a project proposed by a Working Group thus starting a new kind of investment by the Association in research.

Finally, ERA-EDTA launched its new web-site in June of 2019 in order to modernize its look but also so that it can be more efficient in the delivery of its message and educational offers: the aim is to make it “simple and easy”, we are working hard in this direction.

In 2019 the Council had four meetings: London, UK (February 21-23), Budapest, Hungary (June 11-12 and June 16) and Athens, Greece (October 10-12).

Below you can find reports from all the specific bodies and activities of ERA-EDTA performed in 2019: behind every one of these there are hardworking members/volunteers of our Association assisted by our staff and for all these efforts we would like to thank them very much.

Finally, we are delighted to invite you to share with us our next exciting and greatly innovative 2020 Virtual Congress, but would also like to encourage you to participate actively in any of the many initiatives mentioned below.

If anything about all the many initiatives mentioned in this report is unclear, more details can always be found at our website, www.era-edta.org.

Carmine Zoccali (President)

Ivan Rychlik (Secretary-Treasurer)

Danilo Fliser (Renal Science Chair/Chairperson of the Administrative Offices)

Ziad Massy (Clinical Nephrology Governance Chair/Chair of the Registry)

Denis Fouque (NDT Editor-in-Chief)