About the local branches of NSI

When the Norwegian Society for Immunology was founded in 1982, the intention was to encompass the entire immunological community in Norway. The statutes reflected this by declaring that the university cities Bergen, Trondheim and Tromsø should be represented in the board, besides members from the central organization in Oslo. The local branches were also encouraged to collect the membership fees directly from their own members, and even to have their own statutes, approved by the central organization.

In the recent years, there has been only one local branch of NSI, in Bergen, and no members outside Oslo have been represented in the NSI board. The level of activity in NSI has until recently gradually declined (but is now rising fast again - reflected by a member increase of 50 % from 2004 to 2005!). Believing that it would strengthen the organization, the Annual General Assembly decided in 2005 to modify the statutes, omitting the explicit desire for board representation from members outside Oslo. The board may still have members from outside Oslo; the General Assembly assumed only that it was unnecessary to have this recommendation explicitly declared in the statutes.

The NSI does, however, welcome more local branches in other cities besides Oslo and Bergen, and wishes to stress that the central organization will support both practically and financially local activities in such branches.

Local branch of NSI in Bergen

NSI's local branch in Bergen (and previously also Trondheim and Tromsø) has until now mostly organized its activities on its own, with hardly any help (including financial support) from the central organization. After 1998, when Karl Albert Brokstad was elected as board member from Bergen, there has been no board representation from other cities than Oslo. Since 2000, Brokstad has been NSI's local representative in Bergen, but not formally a board member.

However, the NSI still believes that members from outside Oslo should get value for their money!

Note: All members benefit from advantages such as free subscription for Scandinavian Journal of Immunology, grants to NSI and SSI meetings, newsletters and web site updates about important immunological events and meetings, as well as collective membership of SSI, EFIS and IUIS.

Also, any NSI member from outside Oslo, in particular the local representatives, may contact the board for financial or other type of support when organizing scientific meetings. Presently, the NSI board has paid a standard honorary fee for foreign guest lecturers, as well as covered some expenses for refreshments. Please, send a request to the board beforehand, and take good care of the receipts for all payments!

Local branches in other cities

The NSI would like the other university cities Trondheim and Tromsø, and any other city with several NSI members, to make contact in order to establish a local branch of NSI with its own local representative. The idea is that this will in itself contribute to scientific interaction, and also help maintain regular contact between the NSI board and members outside Oslo. Please, contact the board with suggestions for contact persons from your city! The local branches can even have their own web pages (see NSI Bergen), which they may update themselves or with the help from the NSI board.

Furthermore, the NSI would like to invite "non-immunologists" from all over Norway, who perhaps do not primarily consider themselves to be immunologists, but do research with immunological methods or with other immunological aspects, to join NSI. For example, if you are a doctor doing basic or translational research (like Arne Westgaard, the NSI secretary from 2004-5, doing research in pancreatic cancer using immunohistochemical methods), and would like to participate in a scientific forum with people of similar interests as yourself, why not join? You'll get information about important scientific meetings with great scientists from all over the world, and you have a fair chance of getting in touch with scientists who share your interests in and knowledge about fundamental aspects of your research. The idea is of course, that this broader understanding of "immunologists" will contribute to establishing more local branches, outside Oslo and Bergen, which in turn will benefit all members with even more possibilities for scientific interaction.

Last update: 24.11.2005