This webpage details the role of the Nominating Committee (NC) and the details for how and when the associated tasks and roles should be carried out.
The page is provided to encourage transparency in the election process, by allowing the election to be planned and executed without the input of a serving Executive Committee (EC) member.
The Nominating Committee is:
- Composed of 5 society members.
- Responsible for the execution of the tasks required to hold the election.
- Is required to select a member of the NC as the election officer – with specific responsibilities.
The mandate of the Nominating Committee is to generate the list of candidates for the ISB Executive Committee election. This may involve nominating suitable candidates and inviting them to run for election if the number of self-nominated candidates is less that the number of available posts, or reducing the number of candidates requesting to run where there is an over-subscription.
Note that there are 11 EC member positions.
5 positions on the Executive Committee are up for election in 2022/2023. Three of these positions are currently held by Ruth Lovering, Nicole Vasilevsky and Robin Haw, Robin can re-stand for election. As the ISB is a non-profit organization governed by Swiss law one member of the ISB Executive Committee has to be a resident of Switzerland, the EC currently has two residents of Switzerland.
The goal of the nominating committee is to propose a diverse pool of candidates while considering (but not exclusively) the following contributing factors: career stage, geographical location, gender, institutional affiliations, and scientific/research background (i.e. expertise). This will eventually help the ISB to continue working to achieve diversity in the composition of the EC. Here are some helpful definitions:
- Career stage: the ISB-EC has agreed that, when reviewing the list of applicants, you should strive to open opportunities for curators in more junior positions, prioritising them over more senior-position candidates if necessary.
- Gender: you should aim for the pool of candidates to be as gender-balanced as possible. We define ‘gender balance’ as an approximately equal representation of females, males, plus non-gender conforming candidates in the final pool of candidates, so that it may help preserve a generally balanced representation of gender on the EC.
- Geographic location & institutional affiliation: Ideally, candidates should come from across the world and diverse institutions.
- Scientific/Research background (i.e. expertise): you should aim to find a pool of candidates from various scientific backgrounds.
Information about current EC current composition can be found here: https://www.biocuration.org/about/executive-commitee/
It is equally important to stress the candidate’s enthusiasm to serve on the executive committee along with a willingness to commit a proportion of time to ISB activities. Minimally, this involves attending monthly teleconference meetings (1 hour in length) and following up on any action points from meetings, as well as promoting the ISB’s activity to members and non-members. Examples of activities performed by EC members include reviewing micro-grant submissions, preparing call for participation for hosting Biocuration meetings, preparing materials for ISB election, monitoring ISB mail and website. There are specific positions such as Chair, Secretary and Treasurer that will require a larger time commitment, as they will be in charge of leading the steps of the executive committee and by extension the membership.
Ideally, the maximum number of candidates that may be presented for election is less than twice the number of posts up for election. i.e. 2x – 1 (where x is the number of positions open in the executive committee), ie 9 for the 2023 election.
Each candidate must submit a letter of intent via this google form, which includes the following:
- The candidate’s name, position, affiliation.
- Confirmation of the candidate ISB membership.
- The candidate’s motivations to run for a position on the ISB Executive Committee.
- The candidate’s experience with biocuration or her/his intersection with biocuration, details on what he/she will bring to the ISB Executive Committee, and the areas within ISB that the candidate would like to see developed.
- Biosketch: 1 paragraph on the candidate’s career experience.
- Conflicts of interest and other commitments (COIs): declare if there is any conflicts of interest, and declare any other significant commitments (e.g. leaderships of centres or consortia, editorial boards, scientific advisory boards, boards of directors, etc.). As well, including collaborations / consortia, other societies, etc., in which the candidate is involved.
The Nominating committee will be emailed the link to the google form responses.
TIMELINE (note that ideally these dates would be modified to provide more time for the process to run smoothly)
22 August 2023
The EC will post a general call for candidates via the website and mailing list. The 2023 webpages are:
- Information about the election
- Nomination form
This email will include: number of posts up for election, term of office, desire for a geographical and career status spread of candidates, and instruction as to how to contact the nominating committee. Also include the deadline for submission of application 7 September 2023 (3 weeks prior to election).
7 September 2023
- All potential candidates must have submitted the nomination form.
- Only ISB members can be included on the ISB EC election ballot.
- The NC should send the list of candidates to the membership secretary (Parul Gupta, via isb@biocurator.org) who will check this is the case.
- The membership secretary must confirm which candidates are members before the list of candidates can be discussed by the NC.
7 – 21 September 2023
- NC to discuss which 9 candidates to suggest to the EC.
- NC to email suggested 9 candidates to EC.
- PLEASE NOTE: The Nominating Committee should not contact the final list of candidates until the ISB Executive Committee has approved the list.
- NC to email candidates to confirm whether or not they will be included in the list of candidates that the ISB members will vote on.
21 September 2023
- The final candidate list must be established and all applications and COI’s must have been received.
- Note that the application form includes a COI section but it is important to check this has been completed
- NC to forward the list of candidates and their details to the EC for posting on ISB website
25 September 2023
- EC to announce a list of Candidates on website (with letters of intent)
- EC to announce a list of Candidates via Simplelist distribution list
25 September – 02 October 2023 – EC Election
- EC to set up Election Runner (https://electionrunner.com/), which will be used as the electronic voting system.
- EC to remind ISB members to vote for EC via Twitter and Simplelist distribution list
- EC to set up Election runs for 1 week (Monday to Monday)
- Results announced within 1 week of closure of election (by October 9, 2023, usually sooner) by email and on the website.
02 October – 10 October 2023
- Election officer to review the results of the election
- Election officer to inform the EC of the results of the election
11 October 2023
- EC chair to inform applicants of election results
- EC to announce list of new EC members via website and Simplelist distribution list
- EC to update the EC webpage – remove information about all candidates
Contact info: isb@biocurator.org