ANNUAL REPORT

2011

ERA-EDTA Council

PresidentRaymond Vanholder, Belgium

Secretary-TreasurerAndrzej Więcek, Poland

Chairperson of the Administrative OfficesRosanna Coppo, Italy

Editor-in-Chief of “Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation”Carmine Zoccali, Italy

Chairperson of the RegistryChristoph Wanner, Germany

Ordinary Council MembersPeter Barany, Sweden

Peter J. Blankestijn, The NetherlandsJonathan G. Fox, United Kingdom

Markus Ketteler, Germany(Chairperson of the Paper Selection Committee)

Marian Klinger, PolandZiad Massy, France

Kostas Siamopoulous, GreeceVladimir Tesar, Czech Republic

Congress Presidents (Paris - France)Pierre Ronco, France

Raymond Vanholder, Belgium

Registered Charity No. 1060134

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Contents:

1) List of Officers and Council Members page 4 2) Report by the President, Raymond Vanholder page 11

3) Report by the Secretary-Treasurer, Andrzej Więcek page 15

4) Consolidated Statement of Financial Activities (Year ended 31st December 2011) page 19 5) Report by the Chairperson of the Administrative Offices, Rosanna Coppo page 23

6) Report by the Editor-in-Chief of NDT, Carmine Zoccali page 31

7) Report by the Chairperson of the Registry, Christoph Wanner page 34

8) ERA-EDTA 2012 Award page 36

8) Minutes of the XLVIII General Assembly, Prague, 2011 page 38

9) Agenda of the XLIX General Assembly, Paris, 2012 page 45

ANNUAL

REPORT

2011

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FORMER AND CURRENT OFFICERS AND COUNCIL MEMBERS

HONORARY MEMBERS

Name Country Year AwardedKennedy A.C. United Kingdom 1982 Drukker W. The Netherlands 1982 Migone L. Italy 1984Kolff W.J. U.S.A. 1985Scribner B.H. U.S.A. 1985Kerr D.N.S. United Kingdom 1986Legrain M. France 1987Traeger J. France 1988Boen S.T. The Netherlands 1988McGeown M.G. United Kingdom 1990Watschinger B. Austria 1991Shaldon S. Monaco 1994Cameron J.S. United Kingdom 1998Cambi V. Italy 2002Davison A.M. United Kingdom 2002Ritz E. Germany 2005Kokot F. Poland 2010

PRESIDENTS

Name Country Year StartedForminje B. The Netherlands 1964*Swinney J. United Kingdom 1965*Traeger J. France 1966*Thaysen J.H. Denmark 1967*Walsh A. Ireland 1968*Dutz H. Germany 1969*Rotellar E. Spain 1970*Alwall N. Sweden 1971*Migone L. Italy 1972*Kennedy A.C. United Kingdom 1972Thaysen J.H. Denmark 1975Legrain M. France 1978Andreucci V.E. Italy 1981Cameron J.S. United Kingdom 1984Klinkmann H. Germany 1987Botella J. Spain 1990Bernheim J. Israel 1993Berthoux F. France 1996Davison A.M. United Kingdom 1999Locatelli F. Italy 2002Cannata-Andía J. Spain 2005* From 1964 to 1972 the President of the Association was also the Congress President and remained in office for one year only instead of three

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London G. France 2008Vanholder R. Belgium 2011

SECRETARY-TREASURERS

Name Country Year StartedDrukker W. The Netherlands 1964Carmody M. Ireland 1969Andreucci V.E. Italy 1973Boen S.T. The Netherlands 1979Botella J. Spain 1984Cambi V. Italy 1990Carrera F. Portugal 1996Cannata-Andía J. Spain 2002Covic A. Romania 2005Wiecek A. Poland 2011

CHAIRPERSON OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES

Name Country Year StartedCambi V. Italy 1996Piera L. Spain 1999Coppo R. Italy 2005

EDITORES EMERITI

Name Country Year AwardedDavison A.M. United Kingdom 1993Ritz E. Germany 1999Drüeke T.B. France 2005Lameire N. Belgium 2011

EDITORS

Name Country Year StartedKerr D.N.S. United Kingdom 1964Cameron J.S. United Kingdom 1970Moorhead J. United Kingdom 1973Robinson B.H.B United Kingdom 1976Davison A.M. United Kingdom 1982Ritz E. Germany 1993Drüeke T.B. France 1999Lameire N. Belgium 2005Zoccali C. Italy 2011

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CHAIRMEN OF THE REGISTRY

Name Country Year StartedDrukker W. The Netherlands 1969Gurland H. Germany 1972Wing A.J. United Kingdom 1976Brunner F. Switzerland 1985Mallick N.B. United Kingdom 1991Valderrabano F. Spain 1995Briggs J.D. United Kingdom 1997Zoccali C. Italy 2003Wanner C. Germany 2009

ORDINARY COUNCIL MEMBERS

Name Country Year StartedThaysen J.H. Denmark 1964Giovanetti S. Italy 1964Funk-Bretano J.L. France 1964Shaldon S. United Kingdom 1964Alwall N. Sweden 1964Michielsen P. Belgium 1966Orlowski T. Poland 1966Traeger J. France 1966Alexander G.P.J. Belgium 1966Fritz K.W. Germany 1966Kennedy A.C. United Kingdom 1967Mery J.P. France 1967Migone L. Italy 1967Valek A. Czech Republic 1967Bucht H. Sweden 1969Fries D. France 1969Schackman R. United Kingdom 1969Watschinger B. Austria 1969Berionade V. Romania 1970Shaldon S. France 1970Giordano C. Italy 1970van Ypersele C. Belgium 1970Gurland H. Germany 1971Lindstrom B. Finland 1972Mion C. France 1972Andreucci, V. Italy 1972Vereerstraeten P. Belgium 1973Pinggera W. Austria 1973Carmody M. Ireland 1973Cattel W. United Kingdom 1973Laurent G. France 1973Hoeltzenbein J. Germany 1974Klinkmann H. Germany 1975Brunner F. Switzerland 1975

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Boen S.T. The Netherlands 1976Gelin L.E. Sweden 1976Kerr D.N.S. United Kingdom 1976Legrain M. France 1976Schutterle G. Germany 1976Kock B. Finland 1977Bergström J. Sweden 1978Cambi V. Italy 1978Kokot F. Poland 1978Struyvenberg A. The Netherlands 1979Parson V. United Kingdom 1979Andreucci V. Italy 1979Mion C. France 1979Valek A. Czech Republic 1980Ringoir S. Belgium 1981Taraba I. Hungary 1981D’Amico G. Italy 1981Sieberth H. Germany 1981Botella J. Spain 1982Cameron J.S. United Kingdom 1982Jacobs C. France 1982Brynger H. Sweden 1983Wing A.J. United Kingdom 1984Klinkmann H. Germany 1984Cambi V. Italy 1984Dal Canton A. Italy 1984van Ypersele C. Belgium 1984Boen S.T. The Netherlands 1985Mery J.P. France 1985Taraba I. Hungary 1986Kokot F. Poland 1987Bergström J. Sweden 1987Grünfeld J.P. France 1987Koch K.M. Germany 1987Maiorca R. Italy 1987Cordonnier D. France 1988Valderrabano F. Spain 1988Brynger H. Sweden 1989Zucchelli P. Italy 1990Stumvoll H.K. Austria 1990Ritz E. Germany 1990Papadimitriou M.G. Greece 1990Bernheim J. Israel 1990Maggiore Q. Italy 1991Druet P. France 1991Pirson Y. Belgium 1992Berthoux F. France 1993Kokot F. Poland 1993Cannata-Andía J. Spain 1993Piccoli G. Italy 1994Carrera F. Portugal 1994

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Briggs J.D. United Kingdom 1994Fournier A. France 1995Pedersen E.B. Denmark 1995Davison A.M. United Kingdom 1996Schena F.P. Italy 1996Sonkodi S. Hungary 1996Kessler M. France 1997Krediet R.T. The Netherlands 1997Piera L. Spain 1997Locatelli F. Italy 1998Morales J.M. Spain 1998De Francisco A.L.M. Spain 1999Hörl W.H. Austria 1999Wiecek A. Poland 1999Nagy J. Hungary 2000Vanholder R. Belgium 2000Zoccali C. Italy 2000Coppo R. Italy 2001Floege J. Germany 2001Basci A. Turkey 2002London G. France 2002Olgaard K. Denmark 2002Covic A. Romania 2003Eckardt K.-U. Germany 2003Tsakiris D. Greece 2003Goldsmith D. United Kingdom 2004Macdougall I. United Kingdom 2004Frazão J. Portugal 2005Ronco P. France 2005Utas C. Turkey 2005Spasovski G. F.Y.R. of Macedonia 2006Wanner C. Germany 2006Wiecek A.J. Poland 2006Cancarini G. Italy 2007Stenvinkel P. Sweden 2007Chauveau D. France 2008Rychlik I. Czech Republic 2008Süleymanlar G. Turkey 2008Barany P. Sweden 2009Ketteler M. Germany 2009Siamopoulous K. Greece 2009Blankestijn P.J. The Netherlands 2010Klinger M. Poland 2010Fox J.G. United Kingdom 2011Massy Z. France 2011Tesar V. Czech Republic 2011

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CONGRESS PRESIDENTS

Name Country YearForminje B. The Netherlands 1964Swinney J. United Kingdom 1965Traeger J. France 1966Thaysen J.H. Denmark 1967Walsh A. Ireland 1968Dutz H. Germany 1969Rotellar E. Spain 1970Alwall N. Sweden 1971Migone L. Italy 1972Watschinger B. Austria 1973Rosenfeld J. Israel 1974Thaysen J.H. Denmark 1975Schutterle G. Germany 1976Linstrom B. Finland 1977Önen K. Turkey 1978Struyvenberg A. The Netherlands 1979Valek A. Czech Republic 1980Funk-Bretano J.L. France 1981Botella J. Spain 1982Kerr D.N.S. United Kingdom 1983Cambi V. Italy 1984Ringoir S. Belgium 1985Taraba I. Hungary 1986Kessel M. Germany 1987Botella J. Spain 1988Brynger H. Sweden 1989Watschinger B. Austria 1990Cambi V. Italy 1991Jacobs C. France 1992Briggs J.D. United Kingdom 1993Stummvoll H.K. Austria 1994Mountokalakis Th. Greece 1995Donker A.J.M. The Netherlands 1996Bernheim J. Switzerland 1997Zucchelli P. Italy 1998Valderrabano F. Spain 1999Berthoux F. France 2000Hörl W.H. Austria 2001Olgaard K. Denmark 2002Ritz E. Germany 2003Carrera F. Portugal 2004Serdengecti K. Turkey 2005Locatelli F. Italy 2005*Fox J.G. United Kingdom 2006Cannata-Andía J. Spain 2006*Piera L. Spain 2007Cannata-Andía J. Spain 2007*

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Alvestrand A. Sweden 2008Cannata-Andía J. Spain 2008*Locatelli F. Italy 2009Wanner C. Germany 2010London G. France 2010*Tesar V. Czech Republic 2011London G. France 2011*Ronco P. France 2012Vanholder R. Belgium 2012*Süleymanlar G. Turkey 2013Vanholder R. Belgium 2013*

* Co-President

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REPORT BY THE PRESIDENTRAYMOND VANHOLDER

It is a great honor for me to have been given the opportunity to be President of ERA-EDTA. This important Society encourages information, teaching and research in the field of clinical nephrology, dialysis, renal transplantation and related subjects and reports advances in those fields.The year 2011 very well matched these aims. Of note: during the first half of 2011 the ERA-EDTA President and Secretary-Treasurer were G. London (France) and A. Covic (Romania), who were succeeded only after the Prague congress by the current Secretary-Treasurer and President. I cannot therefore take credit of our successes for 2011 since much of the work was done by my predecessors – I do hope to continue their good work and keep the successes of our Society going in this growing positive trend.

The ERA-EDTA Congress in Prague was a substantial success. The meeting was for the first time since three years held by ERA-EDTA alone, in contrast to the two previous congresses, which were respectively organized in collaboration with the International Society of Nephrology (ISN – Milan) and the German Society of Nephrology (DGfN – Munich). 1,989 abstracts were received of which 132 were accepted as a free communication and 1,151 as a poster. The general scientific content was received very well. The Congress was attended by 7,826 colleagues from 126 different countries. Compared to the last Congress organized by ERA-EDTA alone which was in Stockholm, the number of participants increased by 14.5%. A substantial increase was observed in the participation from countries outside Europe, especially from the Arab and Asian regions. I would like to take advantage of the present report to thank all those who made the success of this event possible, beginning with V. Tesar, President of the Congress, I. Rychlich, Congress Secretary, and the Scientific Committee selecting an outstanding programme.

The still growing series of educational courses covering the whole of Europe as well as the countries bordering Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, are two other examples of our commitment towards education. The continued medical education (CME) activities, under the leadership of Goce Spasovski, in 2011 included a total of 35 very successful courses.

The fellowship programme offering opportunities for young researchers and clinicians to accomplish short or long stays abroad for extending their research or for learning new skills was also very successful with 41 applications submitted to the scientific advisory board (SAB) chaired by H. Murer. Of all the received applications in 2011, 11 long-term and 8 short-term fellowships were approved by the Council.

To encourage scientific activities, our Association launched the ERA-EDTA Research Programme of which the main purpose is to favor nephrologic research collaboration via large international networks throughout Europe. Like in 2010, also in 2011 three extended

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research projects were accepted: 1. STARMEN – EUR 595,500.00 – coordinator Manuel Praga; 2. LUST – EUR 900,000.00 – coordinator C. Zoccali; 3. The EuroCYST Initiative – EUR 1,000,000.00 – coordinator A.L. Serra. Consequently, a total amount of EUR 2,495,500.00 was invested in European research, covering the broad field of nephrology. I would like to express my gratitude to Giovanni Cancarini as well as to all SAB members for their great efforts in the management of the fellowship and the research programs, because the process of judging all the submitted projects is delicate and time consuming.

In 2011 the ERA-EDTA also supported the activities of 4 Working Groups: 1. IWG - the Immunonephrology group chaired by R. Coppo; 2. EURECA-m which deals with the link between chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular disease and chaired by G. London (previously chaired by C. Zoccali); 3. EUDIAL, the work group on hemodialysis and related techniques led by B. Canaud; and 4. The WGiKD group on rare and inherited kidney disorders chaired by O. Devuyst. The Council recently decided to create a fifth work group, on transplantation, having D. Abramowicz as its chair, which is currently starting its activities.

In 2011, ERA-EDTA extended its international activities. Our collaboration with the International Society of Nephrology (ISN) was consolidated. The agreement to sponsor one or two fellowships presented to ISN by young nephrologists living in developing Countries of the ERA-EDTA area was changed into a permanent commitment for two long-term or four short-term fellowships. In addition, it was decided to sponsor together with ISN not only common CME courses in the ERA-EDTA area, but to add two CME courses to be held outside of the ERA-EDTA area in emerging countries, preferably in countries with non English speaking background.In addition, also the contacts with the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) were started again and, as a first step it was decided to exchange speakers at the mutual congresses from 2013 onwards and to merge the glomerulonephritis databases from the two continents.At the congress in Prague the first contacts were also made with the colleagues of the Chinese Society of Nephrology, and these contacts will further develop in 2012. Other initiatives are considered in this area and are currently being discussed by the Council. These will include also a renovation of the contacts with the European national societies. ERA-EDTA also gives special grants for young presenters at national society meetings: these include free ERA-EDTA membership for three years as well as a free congress registration for one of our meetings.

ERA-EDTA has also started more in depth contacts with European Union. We are part of the European Kidney Health Alliance (EKHA) together with the ISN, the International Federation of Kidney Foundations (IFKF), the European Dialysis and Transplantation Nurses Association / European Renal Care Association (EDTNA/ERCA) and the European Kidney Patients’ Federation (CEAPIR). The intention is to make renal diseases and their consequences more visible to the European Union, and its administrators as well as its politicians, so that more European support is offered for research and other kidney related initiatives. We are grateful to N. Lameire and Y. Pirson for their help in making this possible.

To attract young nephrologists, as well as to help nephrologists from low income countries, our Society continues to offer reduced membership fees to those members; the council is working on an extension of this initiative to include members from all over the

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world. Travel grants are offered, throughout the year, to young nephrologists both to participate in our annual Congress as well as to participate in our CME Courses – a total of 105 grants were given in 2011. Since 2010 the activities of the Society are crosschecked by the ERA-EDTA Ethics Committee, chaired by J. Bernheim. We are grateful for their many useful suggestions.In 2011, the ERA-EDTA Awards were granted, for the first time, during the opening ceremony of the Prague congress. The first awardees were N. Lameire, E. Ritz and S. Shaldon. The Council is working on an approach whereby more targeted groups would be awarded, e.g. young and senior researchers, or colleagues who had a specific impact on the history and development of ERA-EDTA.

With regard to the two ERA-EDTA journals, Nephrology Dialysis and Transplantation (NDT) and NDT-Plus, 2011 was characterized by a partition of the two editorial boards, essentially to obtain an impact factor for the latter journal. C. Zoccali became Editor-in-Chief of NDT and succeeded N. Lameire who was nominated Editor Emeritus by the Council. A. Meyrier was nominated Editor-in-Chief of NDT-Plus. In addition, it was decided to change the name of NDT-Plus into Clinical Kidney Journal (CKJ) which became effective starting February 2012. We wish to thank the editors and the editorial boards for their continuous efforts to improve the standard of both journals.Our special gratitude also goes to P. Stenvinkel for his efforts in keeping our electronic educational journal (NDT-Educational) up to date as well as intellectually and visually attractive.

The ERA-EDTA Registry, under the leadership of C. Wanner and K. Jager, has continued to offer essential epidemiologic and statistical information about kidney disease in Europe, and has been essential, for quite a few years now, in generating scientific information about these issues, in communications at congresses as well as publications in peer reviewed journals.

The European nephrological guidance body, which changed its name in 2008 from European Best Practice Guidelines (EBPG) to European Renal Best Practice (ERBP), remained active in producing position statements and in the preparation of their first larger guidance documents (one on crush in disasters chaired by M. Sever; one on the preparation for transplantation chaired by D. Abramowicz and P. Cochat; and one on hyponatremia chaired by G. Spasovski). Since June 2011, the ERBP advisory board is coordinated by W. Van Biesen.

In 2011, ERA-EDTA started allotting the title of Fellow of ERA (FERA) to colleagues who fulfilled the necessary criteria. In 2011, 87 people received this affiliation, but the society is currently actively working on extending this group. The full regulations regarding who is eligible for this title will soon be available on our web-site.

Finally, the Council also decided to involve more actively the group of young nephrologists and young researchers in nephrology in its activities. To allow this, a “Young Nephrologist Platform” will be created under the coordination of the Secretary Treasurer, A. Wiecek. ERA-EDTA is currently working on a structural outline of this body and its duties.

Hence, the Society is very active in many areas, with the intention to propagate scientific and clinical progress and visibility of European nephrology. A lot of structural changes are being accomplished which need to be condensed in tenable and foolproof regulations.

Also this has taken a big deal of work and time from a large number of people in 2011.All this would be impossible without the efforts of many. My special thanks go to all officers and ordinary council members, as well as to the staff of the ERA-EDTA administrative office, for their continuous involvement and participation in the many activities of ERA-EDTA.

Best wishes.

Raymond VanholderERA-EDTA President

REPORT BY THE SECRETARY - TREASURERANDRZEJ WIECEK

At the end of the first year of my term as ERA-EDTA Secretary Treasurer I would, once more, like to thank the ERA-EDTA Council, and the General Assembly, for the trust they have given to me. It is great honour, as well as a responsibility, which I take as an opportunity to work for our Association together with many honourable persons. The former ERA-EDTA President Prof. Gerard London, together with the Council, launched many great initiatives and the Council led by the new President Prof. Raymond Vanholder is proud to continue along these lines and thus strengthen the position of the ERA-EDTA among other nephrological societies and making it more and more attractive and visible to its members.

Herewith I would like to describe some new important initiatives done recently by the Council.

Last year brought a significant progress in the development of the ERA-EDTA Research Grants. The ERA-EDTA Scientific Advisory Board received 37 applications. From this huge number SAB members selected three outstanding projects that were also sent to external reviewers for evaluation; they were then confirmed by the Council, granting a total amount of almost 2,5 million €. These projects: Starmen, LUST and EuroCyst should bring rewarding scientific effects. It is also important to underline that we have recently started to monitor, in a very strict way, those grants which are ongoing from the previous calls. It is important to stress that our Fellowship Programme is also very efficient. From the year 2006 (when the Fellowship Programme started) till now ERA-EDTA granted 101 fellowships and immediately after the Congress in Prague in 2011, 8 new short-term fellowships and 10 new long-term fellowships started.

Much is being done in the sphere of Working Groups. A totally new ERA-EDTA Transplantation Working Group is at its final stage of organization and with the chairmanship of Prof. Daniel Abramowicz should begin its scientific and educational activity in the near future. Since the ERA-EDTA Council has received further applications to create new Working Groups, it is time to re-discuss about the entire number of Working Groups that the Society should fund. I would like to express my gratitude to Mrs. Valentina Cocchi who, in our ERA-EDTA Headquarters, among other things, closely follows and assists all our Working Groups.

An initiative which brings great scientific achievements is the collaboration with EUTox, which is an “ERA-EDTA Endorsed Working Group”. This kind of collaboration gives mutual benefits in terms of scientific merits and visibility to both ERA-EDTA and EUTox.

The European Renal Best Practice (ERBP) has been also very active in the passing year.

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I would like to thank Prof. Wim van Biesen for his very competent chairmanship of ERBP and for preparing new guidelines (on diabetic and kidney disease, hyponathremia, crush syndrome and other). The ERA-EDTA Council is also working on regulations and the form of translating our already existing Guidelines into other languages.

An enormous amount of work has been done by the Ethics Committee and especially by Prof. Jacques Bernheim and Prof. Jonathan Fox related to preparing new Transparency Declaration rules. This important document will apply to all of members of the ERA-EDTA active in various committees. It is more and more important nowadays, when high ethical standards are required.

I am proud to share the information about the further development of our CME Courses. This year there will be 31 courses touching many topics within the field of nephrology. In particularly it is worth to mention our most recent idea to open these courses also to developing countries outside of Europe. Furthermore, still going in this direction, is a new proposal – Long Distance Learning. Spiritus Movens of this activity is Prof. Goce Spasovski, whom I would like to thank for his constant hard work and dedication.

Recently we have had significant changes in our publication policy. We have renewed the Editorial Board of NDT and the new Editor-in Chief Prof. Carmine Zoccali is announcing new goals and new, attractive, covers. NDT Plus has been transformed into the Clinical Kidney Journal (CKJ) under leadership of Prof. Alain Meyrier. We are all very excited to see the effects of these new developments.

Another very important matter is ERA-EDTA’s collaboration with other societies. Currently we are renewing contacts with the International Society of Nephrology, the American Society of Nephrology, and creating new ones with Societies of Nephrology from Brazil, China, New Zealand and Australia. Two initiatives, among many others, were created for such future collaborations, namely exchanging Fellowship Programme participants and sharing highlights from the respective Congresses. Exchanging best and scientifically most valuable lectures, abstracts and posters brings mutual benefits.

ERA-EDTA Council members Prof. Ziad Massy Prof. Jonathan Fox and Prof. Rosanna Coppo are doing very good job, together with our President Raymond Vanholder, in promoting ERA-EDTA within other Societies. I would like to thank also Prof. Christoph Wanner for his efforts in preparing the meeting with the Presidents of National Societies of Nephrology. The cooperation with National Societies is one of our priorities and was certainly in need of a new format for the future.

As ERA-EDTA we are participating in European Kidney Health Alliance. It is important that Prof. Norbert Lameire was chosen to be the Chairman of EKHA Management Committee. We have also changed our lobbying company from LOGOS to “Interel”. For their work in this field I would like to thank our representatives Prof. Raymond Vanholder and Mrs. Monica Fontana-Faughnan, as well as Prof. Lameire for their excellent work.

ERA-EDTA Council is currently working on our Association’s visibility. During our recent Council meeting in London a “brainstorm session” related to this point took place. Conclusions from this discussion will certainly bring some effects in the future and members will promptly be informed about them.

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The ERA-EDTA Registry, under the chairmanship of Prof. Christoph Wanner, continues its great efforts in giving us the knowledge background for our clinical and research work. I would like to thank Prof. Christoph Wanner, Prof. Kitty Jager and the entire team at the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam for their very efficient work as well as for sharing their vision of the future of the ERA-EDTA Registry during our last “brainstorm session”. I am sure that projects like EQUAL and cooperation with the European Society for Pediatric Nephrology will be very successful.

I am delighted to report about a few, among many, ERA-EDTA activities. At the Spring Meeting ERA-EDTA Council finally approved bringing to life the Young Nephrologists Platform (YNP). This initiative is meant to give young nephrologists, members of ERA-EDTA, the opportunity to cooperate, share experience and influence the Association from the point of view of younger generation. The main objective of the YNP is to invite young nephrologists to different committees of the ERA-EDTA activities such as the Working Groups, SAB, CME Courses, Congress Scientific Committees and others. The YNP Board will also be involved in the preparations of the ERA-EDTA Congress programmes. The Young Nephrologists Platform Regulations were consulted with young persons interested in such collaboration. I would like to thank Prof. Marian Klinger and Prof. Peter Barany as well as Dr. Juan Jesus Carrero and Dr. Christiane Drechsler for their valuable remarks and suggestions. Special thanks also go to Prof. Jonathan Fox for his precious help in preparing the final version of these regulations.

Many other ERA-EDTA activities are systematically improved. We have 3 new categories of our recently created awards: for Scientific Achievements, for Outstanding Contribution to the Society and the ERA-EDTA Young Investigator. Specific rules for these Awards can be found in the recently modified Council Regulations. We are still awarding Fellows of the ERA-EDTA (FERA) with a special pin and certificate. All together 87 FERA certificates have already been granted. Finally, we have elaborated a new model for the election of the SAB members. Words of praise should go to Prof. Heini Murer, Prof. Giovanni Cancarini and Mrs. Sarah Rocchi for their great work during the election process.

During the last year several Council regulations were created with the huge amount of work done by Mrs. Monica Fontana-Faughnan. The new regulations approved by the Council are aimed at facilitating the coordination work of all our old and new initiatives as well as measuring, in a more objective way, the outcome of the work of these various committees thus facilitating the evaluation job of the Council.

After our forthcoming Congress in Paris a few of our colleges will leave our Council. Enormous applause should go to Prof. Rossana Coppo, Chairperson of the Administrative Offices. Thanks to her excellent work, in cooperation with our Headquarters office in Parma, our Association is an extremely efficient enterprise. This is also reflected in the number of ERA-EDTA members, which grows constantly. During Professor Coppo’s term we started very good initiatives like reducing the annual membership fee for members living in developing countries. That is a big contribution to nephrology, which now will be extended also outside of Europe.

The second person who formally leaves the Council is Prof. Markus Ketteler, who during his ordinary council membership was also elected as the Chairman of the Paper Selection Committee. We all can see effects of his work during our Congresses, the scientific level of which is constantly growing: this gives us a top position compared to similar events

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worldwide. We are experiencing a big increase in number of abstracts and posters submitted to our Congress as well as their scientific value. We hope that this trend will be maintained also in the future. Prof. Markus Ketteler was, last year, elected to become the new Chairperson of the Administrative Offices and he will officially take office at the Congress in Paris.

Two other Council Members are finishing their term as ordinary council member. I would like to express my warm “thank you” to Prof. Peter Barany and Prof. Kostas Siamopoulos (Co-Editor of “Follow us”) for their work during Council meetings and especially for their participation in the discussions and wise opinions to numerous issues presented during the Council meetings.

Finally I would like to congratulate once more Prof. Vladmir Tesar, Prof. Ivan Rychlik, Prof. Raymond Vanholder and Prof. Gérard London for the brilliant and successful Congress in Prague, 2011.

At the end of my Annual Report I would like to thank our President Prof. Raymond Vanholder, Prof. Rosanna Coppo and Officers and Councilors for their cooperation and commitment to the ERA-EDTA. I would also like to thank our Headquarter office in Parma, in particular Mrs. Anna Maria Manara head of the office, for their hard work which is done in a very friendly and constructive atmosphere.

Thanks to Professors Pierre Ronco and Jürgen Floege we can now expect a delightful Congress in May in Paris: what is my wish to all participants and all ERA-EDTA members.

Andrzej WięcekERA-EDTA Secretary-Treasurer

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ERA-EDTA ACCOUNTS

All the ERA-EDTA final account statements are public and can be found by going to our web site (www.era-edta.org) and clicking on “About ERA-EDTA” and then on “ERA-EDTA Accounts”. Should you wish to receive a hard copy of the 2011 accounts please contact the ERA-EDTA Ad-ministration Office (Via I. Spolverini, 2; 43100 Parma; Italy - fax: +39-0521-959242; administra-tion@era-edta.org). Please notice that at the time of printing the auditing is still going on: if there are any slight changes in these accounts they will be presented during the General Assembly prior to their approval.

Year ended 31 December 2011Income & Expenditure

Activity 2011 2010€’000 €’000 €’000 €’000

CongressIncome - Registrations 2.660 2.715

- Exhibition space 2.445 3.0025.105 5.717

Expenditure - Expenses -3.249 -3.618Net income on Congress activity 1.856 2.099

Donation 57

MembershipIncome - Subscriptions 443 476Expenditure - Mgt charges -138 -126Net income on Membership activity 305 350

JournalIncome - Volumes & supplements (gross) 1.695 1.825Expenditure - Volumes & supplements (gross) -926 -992

- Editorial office expenses -240 -269Net income on Journal activity 529 564

Registry (incl AMC)Income - Registry Grants 0 0Expenditure - Registry expenses - General -330 -332

- Registry expenses - AMC -499 -493Net expenditure on Registry activity -829 -825

GuidelinesIncome - Guideline contributions 0Expenditure - Guidelines -218 -186Net expenditure on Guidelines activity -218 -186

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Activity 2011 2010€’000 €’000 €’000 €’000

EducationalIncome - Grants 0 54Expenditure - NDT-Educational

-287 -269 - CME courses - Grants

Net expenditure on Educational activity -287 -215

ResearchIncome Donations & Grants 0 0Expenditure -716 -763Net income on Research activity -716 -763

InvestmentsIncome - Investment income 99 104Expenditure - Investment management charges -11 -9Net income on Investment activity 88 95

FellowshipsIncome - FellowshipExpenditure - Fellowship -682 -298Net expenditure on Fellowships activity -682 -298

103 821AdministrationIncome - Various 3 41Expenditure - Salaries -67 -44

- Consultants fees -264 -243 - Council meetings -86 -77 - Various -380 -312

Net expenditure on Administrative activity -794 -635

Net income for the year -691 186

Gains on Investment disposals & revaluations -53 2Consolidation adjustments 7 121Reserves b/f @ year start 15.039 14.730Reserves c/f @ year end 14.302 15.039

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2011 2010€’000 €’000

IncomeCurrency exchange gains 0 40Other 3 1

3 41

ExpensesPromotional activities 10 9NephroQuest 0 10EKHA 40 35Committees 3 4ERBP 1Mail printing & publications 94 19Currency exchange losses 131 123Miscellaneous 0 7Credit card commission and bank charges 95 101Depreciation 6 4

380 312

Notes to Income & Expenditure - Administration - Various

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2011 2010€’000 €’000

Fixed assets:Tangible fixed assets 7 5Investments 2.666 2.648

2.673 2.653Current assets:Debtors 1.234 1.629Cash at bank 11.400 11.653

12.634 13.282

Total assets 15.307 15.935

Creditors -1.005 -896Net assets 14.302 15.039

Balance SheetAs at 31 December 2011

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REPORT BY THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES

ROSANNA COPPO

MEMBERSHIP

At January 1st, 2012, the membership had reached 5885.

The number of new members are continuing to increase, indicating the appreciation of all the initiatives of the Society.

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The list of the top ten Countries for Membership include: Germany, Italy, Turkey, Po-land, UK, Spain, Japan, France, Greece and Romania.

Members are attracted to join the ERA-EDTA from all over the world.

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Also the figure of Associate Members, coming from non European and non Mediterra-nean Countries is steadily increasing, being now 28.8% of total Members

Interesting data derive from the analysis of the age of our Members. 17% of our Members are <40 years old, 30% are between 40 and 50, 32% between 50 and 60 and 22% >60 years old. Nearly 2/3 of the ERA-EDTA members are represented by Nephrologists between 40 and 60, likely dealing with medical organizational duties. For them the Society can offer, apart from education in scientific novelties, the possibility of networking with col-leagues from other countries. Also the number of young members is consistent and this is the result of the appreciation of the benefits given to our young Members by our Society. At the beginning of 2012 we had a total of 905 Junior members.

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Among the top ten Countries for membership the number of women has exceeded the number of men in four countries.

The ERA-EDTA website has recently been renewed to render it more attractive.

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The interest for the ERA-EDTA is clearly shown by the high number of visits.

The most visited web pages include also the section related to education and member-ship.

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The visits to the Congress area increases as the date of the meeting approaches.

ERA-EDTA continues its efforts and investments in its CME Courses and endorsed events.

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XLVIII ERA-EDTA Congress - Prague, Czech Republic, 2011.

At the XLVIII Congress in Prague, we registered a further increase in the number of del-egates, which reached 7.826.

It was an extremely successful Congress, with delegates coming from all over the world.

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In this slide we can see the fields of interest of the Prague Congress attendants.

Rosanna CoppoChairperson of the ERA-EDTA Administrative Offices

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REPORT BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF NEPHROLOGY DIALYSIS TRANSPLANTATION

CARMINE ZOCCALI

NDT has been one of the biggest successes of our Society. Our Journal is one of the most read by nephrologists and I will strive to maintain the high standard set by past Edi-tors and hopefully help the growth of NDT with editorial innovations, related to both to the format and to technol-ogy.

Here are some of these innovations:- New cover – b&w images of important personalities in nephrology, alternating with colored images of personali-ties and events of the present. We are planning to publish Prof. Ritz and Prof. Richet’s photos, and we already pub-lished Prof. Shaldon with the January issue.

- New design for articles and table of contents, with color-ed inserts that will make the different sections easier to recognize.

- The resubmission time for revised articles has been reduced down to 3 months.

- The number of accepted articles is gradually decreasing, in an attempt to improve the quality of the accepted submissions – within the next 2-3 months we will be able to pub-lish no more than 30 high-rate original articles per issue, divided into themed categories (basic science, clinical science: acute kidney injury, chronic kidney disease, extracorpor-eal treatments of kidney failure, renal transplantation).

- We are meanwhile successfully increasing the number of invited submissions, both edi-torial comments (now called “In focus”) and full reviews.

- We have already invited 94 reviews and 65 Editorial Comments.

- We are accepting an average of 33 original articles per month, at the same time pub-lishing roughly 45-50 per issue (as of July 2012); at this rate we were able to reduced, by almost 100 articles, the old backlog of the journal, and we will hopefully be able to make the journal thinner (as well as increase its quality) by mid-2012 or before.

‐ We are meanwhile successfully increasing the number of invited submissions, both editorial comments (now called “In focus”) and full reviews.

‐ We have already invited 94 reviews and 65 Editorial Comments

Accepted

papers Invitations for editorial

comments Percentage September 30 6 20%

October 39 12 40% November 33 11 33% December 42 6 14%

January 26 13 50% February 30 14 46%

‐ We’re accepting an average of 33 original articles per month, at the same time

publishing roughly 45-50 per issue (as of July 2012); at this rate we were able to reduced, by almost 100 articles, the old backlog of the journal, and we will hopefully be able to make the journal thinner (as well as increase its quality) by mid-2012 or before;

 

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- The invitations have been addressed to well known personalities, currently presenting their study topics at the most relevant nephrology events worldwide such as the last Re-nal Week in Philadelphia and the next ERA-EDTA congress in Paris.

- NEW initiative. We organized a new NDT Course on Critical Appraisal in Leiden aimed at fostering the growth of a new breed of Reviewers. www.ndt-educational.org/Lei-den2012.htm

- The creation of the NDT Perspectives section, dedicated to Education in Clinical Ep-idemiology, the ERBP guidelines and to consensus documents produced by Working Groups of our society.

- The launch of periodical newsletters to editors and continental areas.

- The launch of themed issue: currently we are working on the CKD special issue and Crush recommendations, to be published in the next few months.

Some incubating ideas / proposals are:

- Blog (first attempt, not so successful). - Creating a forum on “groupsite” as alternative to the blog: in the next few week we are going to explore the possibility of opening an account on groupsite.com, to allow an easy discussion and sharing of information for the whole editorial board.

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- Moving the “letters” section out of the printed version of the journal into an online plat-form: E-LETTERS.

- Develop video-articles, funding specific authors for the creation of videos and provid-ing them with guidelines on how to create their own video articles. The videos would then be retraceable through links on the oxfordjournals page of NDT.

As you can see we have many ideas and are very open to any kind of suggestion that you might have – your comments are always welcome.

Carmine ZoccaliNDT Editor-in-Chief

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REPORT BY THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE REGISTRY

CHRISTOPH WANNER

The ERA-EDTA Registry collects data on renal replace-ment therapy (RRT) via the national and regional renal registries in Europe and bordering the Mediterranean Sea. Forty-nine national or regional registries in 28 countries contribute with individual patient data or in aggregated form to this effort. The annual reports are regularly avail-able at www.era-edta-reg.org and core information has re-cently been published in the Clinical Kidney Journal (Renal replacement therapy in Europe – a summary of the 2009 ERA-EDTA Registry Annual Report. van de Luijtgaarden MW, Noordzij M, Wanner C, Jager KJ. CKJ 2012).

The ERA-EDTA Registry is located at the Department of Medical Informatics, Academical Medical Center, Amster-dam, The Netherlands. The Registry is staffed by 5.6 full

time equivalents or 8 persons working part time. The Registry group is lead by senior epidemiologist and managing director Kitty Jager, joined by epidemiologists Vianda Stel, Marlies Noordzij, Karlijn van Stralen and advised by clinical epidemiologist Friedo Dekker. Support is given by senior IT Specialist Ronald Cornet, Medical Information Sci-entist Anneke Kramer and Data Manager/Software Engineer Annick van den Broek. The group has its meetings 3 times per year together with the Registry Committee consisting of Drs. D. Ansell, C. Combe, L. Garneata, F. Jarraya, P. Ravani, R. Saracho, F. Schaefer, S. Schön, E. Verrina, C. Wanner, and ex-officio R. Vanholder, President ERA-EDTA.

The ESPN Registry (European Society of Pediatric Nephrology) is supported by a grant from the ERA-EDTA and bridges to the ERA-EDTA Registry. It is considered to be im-portant for longterm follow-up of paediatric renal replacement therapy. A number of manuscripts have been published in NDT, Kidney Int, Clin J Am Soc Nephrol and Pedi-atric Nephrology.

Besides this backbone work the Registry Staff, with the help of committee members, con-tinues its education in applied clinical epidemiology and has recently concluded its 21st European Course in Clinical Epidemiology. Three courses are planned in 2012 and the lecturers have completed effort by publishing the elements of the course in Kidney Int, Nephron Clinical Practice and Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation.

Last year, 19 original papers and reviews, 9 educational manuscripts were published and 9 publications are ahead of print or in press. The Registry has attracted researchers all over Europe in order to answer specific questions.

The European Union Framework Programme 7 project SysKID - Systems Biology to-wards Novel Chronic Kidney Disease Diagnosis and Treatment – is proceeding well with the support of the Registry expertise in epidemiology and biostatistics.

A new focus is given to the collection and storage (in the database) of clinical performance

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indicators from national and regional registries. A set of most important and valuable performance indicators where elaborated during recent years within the NephroQuest project. A new Primary Renal Disease (PRD) code has been released and the Registry is expressing his gratitude to Keith Simpson (Scotland) (chair of the QUEST Coding & Defi-nitions Working Group) for his invaluable work. The code is available at http://www.era-edta-reg.org/prd.jsp.

The most important project for the next years to come is the establishment of a predialysis registry. This initiative is started with a large cohort study, the EQUAL study and a pilot is coming to completion later in 2012 with the roll out of the study in The Netherlands, Italy, UK, Sweden and Germany. Members interested in the initiative or open for partici-pation can obtain information at the Amsterdam office of the ERA-EDTA Registry.

Christoph WannerChairperson of the ERA-EDTA Registry

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ERA-EDTA 2012 AWARD

ERA-EDTA Award for outstanding scientific merits

Dr John Stewart Cameron is the recipient of the 2012 ERA-EDTA award for lifetime achievements in ne-phrology.Dr Cameron started his nephrological activities in the late 1950s and worked essentially at Guy’s Hos-pital in London.He was active in a broad range of topics related to nephrology, going from diabetic nephropathy, to glomerular diseases, vasculitis, lupus nephropathy, renal biopsies and morphology, pediatric nephrology, uric acid in renal disease, trans-plantation, and CAPD. After his retirement, he has written several publications on the history of nephrology.He was involved in many breakthroughs in the nephrological field: he started long be-fore this became an accepted practice an integrated adult and pediatric nephrology serv-ice; he was co-author of one of the first, if not the first, Randomized Controlled Trial in nephrology; he pioneered in the use of descriptive mathematics in follow-up studies; his group was among the first to use azathioprine for glomerulonephritis and lupus, and the first to apply oral cyclophosphamide for lupus; and he published several studies on the involvement of complement and platelets in glomerulopathies. Dr Cameron authored and co-authored approximately 460 publications, edited 12 books, and wrote over 150 chapters in books. He currently has a Hirsh-index of 69 and was cited more than 14,000 times. He published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet (69 times!), the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the British Medical Journal (49 times), the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Circulation, and many more.A selection of the comments by the committee who shortlisted his name for this award contains the following remarks: “committed himself far above average”; “immense sci-entific work”; “large international recognition”; “still very present in literature”; “he is one of the most inspirational figures in nephrology”. He trained more than 200 fellows from the UK and all over the world.Dr Cameron is truly one of the giants of nephrology who was at the basis of many major new accomplishments which still have their repercussion today.

ERA-EDTA Award for outstanding contributions to the society

Dr Vincenzo Cambi is the recipient of the 2012 ERA-EDTA award for contributions to the society. Dr Cambi became a member of ERA-EDTA in 1971. From 1978 to 1980 he served his first term in the Coun-cil of the Association as Ordinary Member. In 1984 he organized the Congress of EDTA-ERA in Florence. In 1984, he was re-elected Ordinary Council Member for a second term. In 1990 he was elected Secretary-Treasurer,

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which he remained till 1996. In 1991, during this mandate of Secretary Treasurer, the yearly ERA-EDTA Congress had been planned in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia, but a war broke out a few months before. It was his initiative to rescue the Congress by transferring it to Rimini. In spite of the expenses that had already been made for Belgrade, he managed to make the global bal-ance positive. In 1992, he was involved in the transfer of NDT to Oxford University Press, where it still is published. Also this move increased the financial benefit for the Society. From 1994 on, the organization of the Congresses was restructured, emanating in an own Congress Office. Thanks to his initiative the annual congresses are now the main revenue for ERA-EDTA. His main achievement, however, was the registration of ERA-EDTA as a Charity in Eng-land, which made the Society more stable and secure regarding its finance and tax sta-tus. In 1996, when his term as Secretary-Treasurer ended, Dr Cambi was elected by the Council as Chief-Controller (a position that is now named “Chief of the Administrative Office”) and held this position until 1999. In 2002 he was nominated Honorary Member of ERA-EDTA.Apart from his definite merits as a clinician and a scientist, Dr Cambi can certainly be considered as an organisational and financial wizard, who made key contributions to the current prosperity of the Society.

ERA-EDTA young investigator Award

Dr Giovana Seno di Marco is the recipient of the young investigator’s award. The long list of candidates is selected out of the highest ranked abstracts of the three previous ERA-EDTA Congresses. In this way, we award not only a brilliant scientist, but also one who is committed to our Society. She accomplished a very varied career and worked fist in Brazil, which is her birth country, then in Paris, France, and is now active in Münster, Germany. She has a de-gree in biomedical sciences and a specialization certificate in immuno-histochemistry and immuno-cytochemistry, which she obtained in Santiago, Chile.She was awarded three grants, among which one from the Else Kröner Fresenius Stiftung and one from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinshaft.She received ten awards.She published in total 26 original publications, among which three in Kidney Internation-al, two in the Journal of Cellular Biochemistry, and one in the Journal of Clinical Inves-tigation, Plos One, the European Heart Journal, Circulation, the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, Molecular Medicine, and the Journal of Hypertension. She came out first among three high quality shortlisted candidates with what I would call a truly international curriculum, which offers her bright perspectives for the future. We are looking forward to the further evolution of her scientific career.

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48th GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Prague, Czech RepublicSunday, June 26th, 2011

10.30 am – 11.30 am

MINUTES

01. Opening.

The President welcomed ERA-EDTA members to the meeting.The President of the Association, Prof. G. London, announced that prior to closing the voting for three Council vacancies, any full member who had yet to vote could do so before the General Assembly commenced. The voting was closed and the President asked for four ERA-EDTA full members to count the votes. Prof. F. Mallamaci, Prof. M. Klinger, Prof. J. Bernheim and Prof. P. Stenvinkel counted the votes.

02. Minutes of the 47th General Assembly, Munich, Germany, June 28th, 2010.

The minutes from General Assembly in Munich were approved.

03. Matters arising from the minutes.

There were no other pending issues.

04. Report of the President of the ERA-EDTA, G. London.

The President began his report by presenting the atlas of ERA-EDTA’s activities:

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- A new committee was recently appointed by the ERA-EDTA, in order to aim and coordinate the CME activity supported and promoted by the Association. Prof. G. Spasovski is the chairman and Prof. I. Rychlik is the Secretary. There were created great opportunities for young nephrologists like “Meet the expert” sessions - unique occasions to ask very well known speakers and experts for advise on practical clinical problems and share opinions or ERA-EDTA travel grants for those who are 35 years old (or younger). All details and necessary forms are available on the webpage of each CME course. The Long Distance Learning Programme (LDL) has been considered as an educational possibility from which our membership could benefit. The ERA-EDTA Council approved the creation of one CME - Module (Pilot) by MedEd Global Solution, a company which is a professional organization dealing with this type of work. - The literature review is a renewed service that NDT-Educational offers to its registered users; leading experts in kidney related diseases regularly select and comment the most interesting articles published on the Medical Journals. The Editor-in-Chief, Prof. P. Stenvinkel, together with the Faculty’s members published new activities on the NDT-Educational website. All contents are available on www.ndt-educational.org- The Scientific Advisory Board is an active body, analyzing and selecting the fellowship applications and research projects. The list of the winners for the long and short term fellow was presented. For the second ERA-EDTA Research Call 37 pre-proposals were submitted. 11 of them were discarded for administrative reasons and two pre-proposals were not ranked, due to the lack of internationality. 24 pre-proposals were ranked, from which three were judged as deserving to pass to the second step of the selection. - The ERA-EDTA Working Groups like EURECA-m lead by Prof. C. Zoccali, Immuno-nephrology coordinated by Prof. R. Coppo, European Dialysis under the leadership of Prof. B. Canaud, WG on Inherited Kidney Disorders guided by Prof. O. Devuyst and ERBP managed by Prof. R. Vanholder and newly elected Prof. W van Biesen followed the same targets as research, teaching, communication and education in the field of cardiovascular and renal disease, immune system disorders, mechanisms of inherited diseases affecting the kidney, convective renal replacement therapies and novel online modalities and in the same time aim to increase the visibility and implementation of European Nephrology recommendations and guidance and to enhance the quality of European and worldwide nephrology practice.

The President thanked all ERA-EDTA Officers, Council members, ERA-EDTA members and all staff of the Administrative Offices for their continuous involvement in ERA-EDTA life.

The President invited Prof. A. Covic to present the report.

05. Report of the Secretary-Treasurer of the ERA-EDTA, A. Covic.

The Secretary-Treasurer started his report by expressing his appreciation for the ERA-EDTA great team. He thanked previous and actual Officers, Councillors, members, staff of Administrative Office who have given to the Association their time, ideas and hard work. He pointed out a few achievements:- The assets of the ERA-EDTA have been growing, thanks to a good policy for investments. The Association has reached a financial stability that enabled to consider many plans that a few years ago would have been perceived as too ambitious. - The change in the ERA-EDTA election system for Ordinary Council Members. The

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new election system allows full ERA-EDTA members to have an active role in the life of the Association even if they cannot participate in the Annual General Assembly.- The ERA-EDTA Newsletter “Follow-us” continuously updates the members and non-members about current Association´s activities and future plans. The Editorial Board together with the administrative and technical staff are devoting their initiatives and work to this important task. This electronic bulletin is clearly a success that provides a much needed link with all our members. - The ERA-EDTA website was restructured; the new look is more interactive, more practical and easier to use, it has a more modern graphical design. The information is aimed to include more sections that are catching the attention of potential users. The sitemap section allows the visitors to see and access every section. The Education part provides all necessary information such as CME Courses, Fellowships, Grants, Research, and Guidelines.- In order to adapt the ERA-EDTA to numerous changes during the last six years, the Council had introduced some administrative and financial modifications that are facilitating the management and control of many news initiatives. These include new regulations regarding Annual Congress, Congress Selection, Transparency Declaration, Industry Symposia, Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), Council Regulations, Scientific Committee, NDT-Plus Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Working Groups, External Committees, External non -Council members, New ERA-EDTA logo, ERA-EDTA pin, ERA-EDTA Fellow etc.

Prof. A. Covic continued his report with the 2010 accounts.

06. Approval of the 2010 accounts.

The Secretary-Treasurer informed that the full accounts have been forwarded to all ERA-EDTA’s full members. He presented the status of the 2010 accounts and pointed out a few observations:- the net income on Congress Activity was stable in comparison with the previous years, - the amount for the membership area is almost the same, with a small increasing.- the expenses related to the Council meetings, Parma Office and Officer’s offices are keeping the same line.- the Balance sheet showed a gradual increase of the ERA-EDTA reserves despite of the European crisis.

The accounts were unanimously approved by the General Assembly.

The President thanked Prof. A. Covic for his report and proposed to move on the next item from the Agenda. He invited Prof. R. Coppo to present her report.

07. Report of the Chairperson of the Administrative Offices of the ERA-EDTA, R. Coppo.

Prof. R. Coppo began her report by informing about the membership situation. On January 1, 2011, there were 5794 ERA-EDTA members. The Membership has reached a stable level of more than 5500 over the last years. The number of new members is almost stable. The trend to leave the ERA-EDTA after some years of membership is finally reversed, making the balance slightly positive + 174. This indicated that the ERA-EDTA succeeded

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in becoming more attractive.Considering members from each country, Germany has the highest absolute figure, followed by Poland, Turkey, Greece, Italy, U.K., Spain, Japan, France, and Romania which have more than 180 members. The figures over the last years, by countries, showed a general stability in 2009 and 2010 in comparison to 2008 Members data. The analysis of the age gives rise to a few considerations: 16% of members are less than 40 years old, 30% between 40-50 years, 33% between 50-60 and 20% more than 65 years old. About 28% of ERA-EDTA members are Associate members from non European countries or bordering the Mediterranean Sea.

The total number of people attending the Munich Congress, including exhibitors and visitors was around 8300, from Italy, Germany, Spain, France, Austria, Japan, UK, Poland, Turkey, Greece, Romania, Serbia, Czech Republic etc. The data from the Munich Congress showed a success from the scientific and economical point of view. The main areas of interests were: Clinical Nephrology, Hemodialysis, Peritoneal Dialysis, Transplantation, Hypertension, Acute KI, CKD, Anemia and Diabetic Nephropathy.

The President thanked Prof. R. Coppo for her report and invited Prof. M. Ketteler to present his report as chairman of the Paper Selection Committee.

08. Report of the Chairperson of the Paper Selection Committee, M. Ketteler.

Prof. M. Ketteler presented a short summary of abstract review process.From the total number of submitted abstracts at ERA-EDA Congress in Prague, 1989, 65% (1283) were accepted. The score of rejected abstracts was <10.4/20. The score of accepted abstracts was between 10.5/20 and 17.6/20. The acceptance rate was 10.5. A few titles of a very interested late breaking clinical trials abstracts were presented.

The President thanked Prof. M. Ketteler and invited Prof. C. Wanner to present his report.

09. Report of the Chairman of the Registry, C. Wanner.

The Chairman of the Registry presented his report by updating the General Assembly on the Registry’s plans.

The ERA-EDTA renewed the contract with the Academic Medical Center from the University of Amsterdam, where the Registry’s activities are developed. The contract is available until 2014 and the investments are around 900,000 Euros per year. The ERA-EDTA Registry is working on the extension of routine data collection (clinical performance indicators, comorbidity, new PRD coding), the technical innovation of information system and Quest. The Nephroquest project is finished and the final report was written. The Registry’s website is regularly updated, is accessible and very well structured. The Registry Annual Report is published in NDT. A set of publications reflecting the Registry’s activity were presented. The CKD Research/Registry and ESPN/ERA-EDTA Registry are the new areas of work.

One of the attendees at the General Assembly asked about the CKD project.Prof. C. Wanner presented very briefly the new research plan – EQUAL, a project in CKD stage 4/5. This collaborative project is a prospective cohort study funded as a grant by

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ERA-EDTA. This brought the Chairman of the Registry’s report to a close.The President thanked Prof. C. Wanner and invited Prof. N. Lameire to present his report.

10. Report of the NDT Editor-in-Chief, N. Lameire.

Prof. N. Lameire began his report by presenting an overview of the Editorial activities of the Journal. The figures for 2010 showed an increase in the number of submissions to NDT. The number of submissions to NDT in 2010 was 3444 (2333 original submissions and 1111 revisions). The number of submission to NDT PLUS in 2010 was 607 (420 original submissions and 187 revisions). The average for new NDT submission rate per day was 10-12 and the average overall NDT submission rate per day 11.

The evolution of the NDT’s impact factor was presented. In 2008 the impact factor increased (3,568) and the Journal was ranked 11th out 57 journals in the Urology/Nephrology category. The NDT Plus was not ranked and has not yet an impact factor. The 2009 Impact Factor was published in June 2010 and showed slight decrease to 3,306, compared to 2008. The NDT was ranked 13th out of 63 journals in the Urology/Nephrology category. The NDT Plus was not considered for impact factor because has the same Editor-in-Chief.

Taking into consideration the evolution of the Impact Factor and the workload for NDT and NDT Plus, the Council decided that NDT Plus should be an independent journal with a separate Editor-in-Chief. Prof. A. Meyrier was nominated and approved by the Council as Editor-in-Chief of NDT Plus.

The Editor in Chief presented a set of general information regarding the NDT and NDT Plus activity. Both journals are accessible from smart phone mobile devices via NDT and NDT Plus. A few approved changes in the Editorial Board were presented.

This concluded the report from the NDT Editor-in-Chief.The President thanked Prof. N. Lameire and invited Prof. J. Bernheim, the chairman of the Ethics Committee to present his report.

11. Ethics Committee, J. Bernheim.

Prof. J. Bernheim presented a few aspects related to:- Trust of leadership and maintaining the trust; leadership and conflict of interest;- Individuals and conflict of interest; positive and negative relationships;- Relationships between academia, physicians, researchers and industry (benefits and risks); ideal and facts; impact in publications.The Ethics Committee is working on these aspects.

One of the participants at the General Assembly considered that the ERA-EDTA Officers should not be part of any activity which implies the Industry. He was thinking that there is a conflict of interest. Also, he mentioned that he was a little bit confused because in the Transparency Declarations that he has seen, nobody ever has anything to declare.

Prof. R. Vanholder confirmed what happens, with regard to this specific matter, with ERBP: He informed the participants that each speaker, before the presentation, must

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show a slide with his/her Transparency Declaration.It is not considered conflict of interest if the author has nothing to declare. For the second presented situation, Prof. Vanholder mentioned that there is a compulsory Declaration of conflict on interests for everybody who is member of a working group on a paper. The first declaration is given at the beginning of the procedure and another one before the publication of the paper.

Prof. N. Lameire pointed out that the Transparency Declaration is different as content then the Declaration of Conflict of Interest. The Scientific Committee and the Paper Selection Committee do not accept papers if the rules are not followed.

12. Venue and date of future ERA-EDTA Congresses, G. London.

The President announced the date and the venue for the next congresses.

The 49th Congress is planned to be in Paris, during 24th – 27th of May 2012.The 50th Congress is planned to be in Istanbul, 18th – 25th of May 2013.The 51st Congress is planned in Amsterdam, 31st of May – 3rd of June 2014.

13. Election of the ERA-EDTA Chairperson of the Administrative Office for the term 2012 – 2015.

Nominated Candidate: Markus Ketteler (Germany)The General Assembly unanimously voted the nominated candidate.

Prof. Markus Ketteler was elected as ERA-EDTA Chairperson of the Administrative Office for the term 2012-2015.

14. Election of the Chairman of the ERA-EDTA Registry for the second term 2012 – 2015.

Nominated Candidate: Christoph Wanner (Germany)The General Assembly unanimously voted the nominated candidate.

Prof. Christoph Wanner was elected as Chairman of the ERA-EDTA Registry for the term 2012-2015.

15. Election of Ordinary Council Members (three vacancies).

At the Prague General Assembly the following three new Ordinary Council Members were elected: Jonathan Fox (U.K.), Ziad Massy (France) and Vladimir Tesar (Czech Republic).

16. Correspondence and other business.

Prof. G. London reminded the members that at the previous General Assembly, in

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Munich 2010, it was decided to delay by one year the decision related to a change of the Constitution regarding the Scientific Committee, chapter XVIII. Congress - point 04. The reason for this change was that the current ERA-EDTA Constitution is too binding with regard to the nationality of the members of the Congress Scientific Committee. At that time, Prof. J. Bernheim mentioned that the actual content of the article give the possibility for small countries to have representatives in the Scientific Committee.

The President proposed to postpone the decision for the General Assembly in Paris, May 2012.

This matter was postponed for the autumn Council Meeting, October 2011. The proposal will be presented at the next General Assembly in Paris, May 2012.

Prof. R. Vanholder announced that a post-congress Council Meeting was scheduled at 1.00 pm, “Small Theater” meeting room. He invited the Councilors and the new elected Ordinary Council Members to attend the meeting.

17. Closure.

The President thanked all members for their participation.

The General Assembly closed at 11.30 am.

Prof. G. London Prof. Adrian CovicPresident Secretary-TreasurerERA - EDTA ERA – EDTA

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49th GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Sunday, May 27, 2012 – 10.30-11.30 amAmphitheatre Havane

Palais des Congrès – 3rd FloorParis, France

AGENDA

1. Opening.

2. Minutes of the 48th General Assembly, Prague, Czech Republic, June 26, 2011.

3. Matters arising from the minutes.

4. Report of the President of the ERA-EDTA, R. Vanholder.

5. Report of the Secretary-Treasurer of the ERA-EDTA, A. Wiecek.

6. Approval of the 2011 Accounts.

7. Adjustment of the “Reserve Fund Maximum Amount” from EUR 2.5 ml to EUR 6 ml

“ERA-EDTA Constitution” Article XII-03.

8. Proposed change to the Constitution of the ERA-EDTA, presented for the first time – see appendix.

9. Report of the Chairperson of the Administrative Offices of the ERA-EDTA, R. Coppo.

10. Report of the Chairperson of the ERA-EDTA CME Activities, G. Spasovski.

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11. Report of the Chairperson of the Paper Selection Committee, M. Ketteler.

12. Report of the Chairperson of the Registry, C. Wanner.

13. Report of the NDT Editor-in-Chief, C. Zoccali.

14. Ethics Committee, J. Bernheim

15. Venue and date of future ERA-EDTA Congresses, R. Vanholder.

16. Election of Ordinary Council Members (three vacancies)*.

17. Correspondence and other business.

19. Date and venue of the next meeting.

19. Closure.

* - The following candidacies have been proposed to the Secretary-Treasurer (listed below in alphabetical order according to last name):

- Denis Fouque (France) - Loreto Gesualdo (Italy) - Gert Mayer (Austria) - Alberto Ortiz (Spain) - Mehmet Sever (Turkey)

All Full members of the ERA-EDTA will be able to vote for a maximum three (3) candidates. Both electronic and paper ballot voting will be possible. If however a member has voted electronically he/she will NOT be allowed to vote a second time on-site with the paper ballot!

Electronic voting will be open from April 16, 2012 to May 16, 2012 inclusive. All Full ERA-EDTA Members will receive, by post, a letter prior to April 16, 2012 with the precise details regarding the procedure to be followed as well as the Username and Password to be used.

Voting on-site in Paris will also be possible: in this case however only the traditional paper ballot will be available. The voting station, next to the ERA-EDTA Membership Office, in the Registration

Area will be open from 14:00 to 18:00 on May 24, 2012 (Thursday), from 7:00 to 19:00 on May 25, 2012 (Friday), from 7:00 to 19:00 on May 26, 2012 (Saturday) and also before the start of the General Assembly on May 27, 2012 (Sunday) starting at 7:00 up to 10.00.

A valid identification document (i.e. passport of national identity card) of the Full member who wishes to vote must be personally shown in order to vote. Vote by proxy

is NOT possible.

A short curriculum for each candidate will be on display at the voting station and is also on the ERA-EDTA’s website (www.era-edta.org), click on “About ERA-EDTA” and then on “ERA-EDTA Council Candidates 2012”.

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Full members can also vote immediately before the start of the General Assembly at 10:30 am on May 27, 2012 (Sunday) in the “Amphitheatre Havane” Room on the 3rd

floor of the Palais des Congrès.

Appendix

PROPOSAL FOR THE ERA-EDTA CONSTITUTIONSCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

Reasoning: the current ERA-EDTA Constitution is too binding with regard to the nation-ality of the members of the Congress Scientific Committee. It is essential to reflect the international nature of the Society in this committee, however it is also very important to have committed persons as well as established experts in the various fields.

Current article:

XVIII. Congress. - 04. The Council will appoint the Chairman of the Scientific Committee. The Council will also appoint a Scientific Committee consisting of no less than 15 and no more than 20 members, to be chosen from Full, Associate, Senior and Honorary Mem-bers of the Association; exceptions can be made to this rule only for non nephrologists. The Presidents of the Congress, according to clause XVIII-02, will be part of the Scientific Committee. Apart from the Presidents of the Congress, no more than two members of the Scientific Committee can be from the same country.TO BE REMOVED!

PROPOSAL:

XVIII. Congress. - 04. The Council will appoint the Chairman of the Scientific Committee. The Council will also appoint a Scientific Committee consisting of no less than 15 and no more than 20 members, to be chosen from Full, Associate, Senior and Honorary Mem-bers of the Association; exceptions can be made to this rule only for non nephrologists. The Presidents of the Congress, according to clause XVIII-02, will be part of the Scientific Committee.

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LASTNAME ________________________________ FIRSTNAME _______________________ ERA-EDTA N° ________

ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE ____________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

ZIP CODE _________________ CITY __________________________________ PROVINCE _______________________ COUNTRY _______________________________________ TELEPHONE ________________________________________

FAX ____________________________________ E-MAIL _____________________________________________________

The ERA-EDTA collects and processes personal information to provide you with details regarding the Association and its activities. The above information will be published in the ERA-EDTA Directory of members on our web-site (access to which is restricted to ERA-EDTA members only) and will be used for accounting and commercial purposes by ERA-EDTA and/or Euromeetings s.r.l. in compliance with the Italian Legislative Decree 196/2003. Members can ask that this iformation be changed, corrected or cancelled at any time by contacting the ERA-EDTA Membership Of-fice where also further information can be obtained. Steps have been taken to ensure that consistently high standard of data protection are always in place.The mailing address and/or e-mail address of ERA-EDTA members may be forwarded to third parties whose services might be of interest to you. All requests of mailing addresses and/or e-mail addresses are, in any case, first approved by an Officer of the ERA-EDTA Council. If you would like to receive information from third parties please tick one of these boxes: c YES, I wish to receive only e-mails from third parties; c YES, I wish to receive only post form third parties; c YES, I wish to receive both e-mails and post from third parties.

This information will be used to update our files as well as the Directory of Members on Internet.

We would appreciate your kind collaboration to help us give you a better service.

You can submit your new address, or contact details, directly online!

Simply go to our website (www.era-edta.org) and access the “Members’ Restricted Area”

ADDRESS CHANGE FORMONLY if you have recently changed your address,

or other data mentioned below, should you fill in and send this form to the ERA-EDTA Membership Office!

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ERA-EDTA Membership Officec/o Mrs. Monica Fontana Faughnan, Office ManagerVia Aldo Moro, 18I-35030 Bastia di Rovolon (PD)Italy

PUTSTAMPHERE

AIR MAIL POSTCARD

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