Society

Some His­tory and Gen­er­al Information

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The European Soci­ety for Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy (ESEB) was foun­ded on 28 August 1987 in Basel (Switzer­land), with about 450 evol­u­tion­ary bio­lo­gists attend­ing the inaug­ur­al con­gress of the Soci­ety; Arthur Cain became the Soci­ety’s first pres­id­ent. The found­ing of the ESEB was closely linked to the launch­ing of the Soci­ety’s journ­al, the Journ­al of Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy, with Steph­en C. Ste­arns as the first Edit­or in Chief, and the first issue appear­ing in Janu­ary 1988. See the edit­or­i­al open­ing of the journ­al; see also Steve Ste­arns’ account of the early days of the ESEB.

ESEB’s Mis­sion

To pro­mote the study of organ­ic evol­u­tion, by:

  1. Pub­lish­ing the Journ­al of Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy (JEB) and Evol­u­tion Let­ters (EL).
  2. Organ­iz­ing con­gresses and sci­entif­ic meetings.
  3. Ren­der­ing fin­an­cial and oth­er sup­port to research in organ­ic evolution.
  4. Sup­port­ing activ­it­ies to foster a sci­en­tific­ally based under­stand­ing of organ­ic evol­u­tion in teach­ing and research.
  5. Any activ­it­ies related to the above, dir­ectly or indir­ectly, in the broad­est sense.

Our val­ues are:

  • Respect
  • Schol­ar­ship
  • Teach­ing and Learning
  • Integ­rity, Trans­par­ency, and Accountability
  • Diversity, Equity, Inclus­iv­ity, and Collegiality

Our goals are to:

  • Pro­mote a deep­er under­stand­ing of the evol­u­tion of the world’s biod­iversity through research, teach­ing, ser­vice, and com­munity engagement.
  • Dis­rupt long­stand­ing bar­ri­ers and pro­mote diversity, equity, inclus­iv­ity, and access­ib­il­ity in our pro­fes­sion for excel­lence and integ­rity of the field.
  • Main­tain the highest pro­fes­sion­al and eth­ic­al stand­ards when con­duct­ing, eval­u­at­ing, and shar­ing research and enga­ging in oth­er pro­fes­sion­al endeav­ours; and main­tain sim­il­arly high per­son­al eth­ic­al stand­ards in activ­it­ies that could affect pro­fes­sion­al endeavours.
  • Strengthen and expand the infra­struc­ture for research and education.

ESEB invests in its mis­sion, val­ues and goals through inter­woven fin­an­cial sup­port. For example, ESEB funds actions to pro­mote equal oppor­tun­it­ies, and sup­ports early career research­ers and research­ers from under-rep­res­en­ted groups to attend ESEB con­gresses and sci­entif­ic meet­ings. ESEB facil­it­ates new research in act­ive research fields, by fund­ing research net­works with wide ESEB mem­ber par­ti­cip­a­tion. ESEB also invests in co-fin­an­cing of work­shops that sup­port loc­al evol­u­tion­ary bio­logy com­munit­ies in low income coun­tries, and in out­reach activ­it­ies to pro­mote a sci­en­tific­ally-based under­stand­ing of organ­ic evolution.

ESEB is com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing pro­fes­sion­al and eth­ic­al beha­viour, and assess­ing the envir­on­ment­al costs of our activ­it­ies. ESEB is increas­ingly invest­ing in activ­it­ies with lower envir­on­ment­al impacts, for example, in the dis­persed hub-based con­gress format.

Togeth­er these activ­it­ies con­trib­ute to our mis­sion and emphas­ize our val­ues (of dis­rupt­ing long­stand­ing bar­ri­ers to inclu­sion, and facil­it­at­ing diversity with­in evol­u­tion­ary research, as well as strength­en­ing and expand­ing evol­u­tion­ary infra­struc­ture to research and edu­ca­tion, increas­ing access­ib­il­ity and pro­mot­ing com­munity engagement).

Since its found­a­tion, the ESEB has grown and matured, with cur­rently more than 1500 mem­bers, while the Journ­al of Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy became a major journ­al in the field. This reflects the growth of the evol­u­tion­ary bio­logy com­munity in Europe and bey­ond, which the Soci­ety helped to foster.

The suc­cess of the ESEB would not be pos­sible without many mem­bers who devoted their time and effort to the Soci­ety and the journ­al: elec­ted officers, con­gress organ­izers, mem­bers of the coun­cil, com­mit­tees, and the edit­or­i­al boards of the Journ­al of Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy and Evol­u­tion Let­ters.

ESEB is com­mit­ted to provid­ing a safe, inclus­ive and respect­ful envir­on­ment. Our Code of Eth­ics and Code of Con­duct out­line our val­ues and the stand­ards that we expect all our mem­bers, officers, board and com­mit­tee mem­bers and con­gress par­ti­cipants to adhere to. If you exper­i­ence, or are aware of, any form of inap­pro­pri­ate beha­vi­or with­in the con­text of ESEB activ­it­ies, and if you want to report this, or speak to us about it, you can con­tact our con­fid­en­ti­al­ity advisor Ms. Joanne Hard­ing (Work­force Win­dow Ltd, joanne@workforcewindow.co.uk).

In con­tact­ing our con­fid­en­ti­al­ity advisor in this way, your name would not be com­mu­nic­ated fur­ther and no actions would be taken without your con­sent. How­ever, the con­fid­en­ti­al­ity advisor may report the case in anonym­ized form to the ESEB Steer­ing Com­mit­tee. You can also report or speak about a case of (poten­tial) inap­pro­pri­ate beha­vi­or dir­ectly with the ESEB Steer­ing Com­mit­tee (ellen.decaestecker@kuleuven.be) or with the ESEB Office Man­ager Dr. Ute Friedrich (office@eseb.org); your case will then be brought to the atten­tion of the Steer­ing Com­mit­tee. The Steer­ing Com­mit­tee is respons­ible for hand­ling com­plaints, which may include involving an extern­al party or our con­fid­en­ti­al­ity advisor to invest­ig­ate the case, and for decid­ing on appro­pri­ate actions.

Constitution & Bylaws

The Eng­lish ver­sion of the soci­ety’s con­sti­tu­tion is avail­able here: ESEB Con­sti­tu­tion 2018 (EN). If you would like to receive the Dutch ver­sion, please send a request to the ESEB office (office@eseb.org).

The ESEB Bylaws are avail­able here: ESEB_Bylaws

Code of Ethics

ESEB Code of Ethics

Code of Conduct

ESEB Code of Conduct

Policy Plans

Annual Activities Reports

Annual Financial Reports

General Members’ Meeting

All mem­bers of the Soci­ety are invited to the Gen­er­al mem­bers’ Meet­ing, which takes place dur­ing the ESEB con­gress or vir­tu­ally in non-con­gress years. The meet­ing minutes are pub­licly available: