|  | Foreword | No.55 January 2009 |
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President’s Message |
Dear ICSSPE Member I, along with the other newly-elected officers and the Executive Office in Berlin, look forward to working with you and all ICSSPE members, during the forthcoming four year period, which promises to be interesting and demanding for physical education and sport science. The collective influence of 300 member organisations and their respective memberships will be needed more than ever, in a world in which resources are becoming scarce and every item of spending is scrutinised. Yet we can go forward with some confidence. ICSSPE is the largest constituency in sports science and physical education in the world, and represents a wide range and large number of talented and committed scientists, researchers and practitioners. The organisation also provides excellent value for money, for its members, for its funders and for its external partners. We record our sincere appreciation for the continued funding from the German Federal and Berlin Governments; and look forward, too, to working with them on common issues and concerns, both within Germany, the home of our Executive Office; and in Europe and worldwide. The success of the first International Scientific Convention on Education and Medicine in Sport (ISCEMIS), held in Guangzhou in July 2008, was the outcome of excellent collaboration with our hosts in China; and an increasingly effective partnership between ICSSPE and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and the International Federation of Sports Science (FIMS). This partnership is being strengthened and sustained as we prepare for the second ISCEMIS in the UK in 2012. We look forward to lively participation in the planning of this event, by all ICSSPE Members and our Partners during this four year period. ICSSPE recognises the challenges of continued attrition of the position of physical education in school curricula, in different countries across the world, while welcoming progress in some other countries. We welcome the commitment of ACHPER in hosting a Summit on Physical Education in Oceania in July this year, and applaud the efforts of national member organisations who continue to lobby to improve the position of physical education, acknowledged in the 1999 Berlin Summit Agenda for Action, as a necessary right for children within education and recreation. ICSSPE will continue to play its part in raising awareness of the power of sport as a development tool, as shown by its work in post-disaster programmes; the use of sport science perspectives in high level sport and the development of talent; health promotion through physical activity; and in the need for educational action to support the work of the World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA. These areas of work highlight the continued need for the strategic strands which ICSSPE has already selected, ie Quality Physical Education, Ethics and Professionalisation, and Physical Activity and Health. Collaborative work in some of these areas has already resulted in resources which are now being consulted by governments and organisations, all over the world. Further multi-disciplinary collaboration is ever more necessary, as our world becomes more complex and subject to rapid change. ICSSPE’s mission, “Science in the Service of Sport”, has never been so relevant. Professor Dr Margaret Talbot, PhD OBE FRSA President ICSSPE http://www.icsspe.org/portal/index.php?w=1&z=5 President’s Message