What's new at ISBNPA | September 2026

September 2026

President's Message

ISBNPA2027 - Halifax

Membership | Updating Everything

Webinars

Latest articles @IJBNPA

Dear ISBNPA Members,

It was a real pleasure to see so many of you in Cádiz for the 2026 edition of our conference, which was a real success despite geopolitical travel issues.

Since Cádiz, there has been some painstaking, unglamorous work underway to make ISBNPA more transparent, efficient and sustainable. We are conducting a full review of our bylaws and committee structures. We are writing them together with a clear set of standard operating procedures, which will be shared with the membership shortly for adoption, so that ISBNPA runs on clear, transparent rules rather than institutional memory alone.

We are also introducing, for the first time, an annual cycle of budget review and allocation procedures. None of this makes for exciting reading, but it's the kind of work that lets everything else — the conference, the journal, our SIGs — run better. Thank you to everyone who has taken on a committee role this cycle, and to António and Sofia for carrying the bulk of the drafting.

On a more exciting note, work is solidly underway to develop ISBNPA's new community journal and the associated training. If you are an ECR and/or member of NESI and interested in getting involved, get in touch.

Warm regards,

Sebastien

ISBNPA2027 - Halifax

Save the date: June 16–19, 2027. Halifax, Canada.

Planning for Halifax is well under way:

The abstract and symposia submission system is being redesigned:
We want each symposium to tell a story about a research topic, so the presentations need to be aligned and coherent. As a result, each symposium will now count as a single submission, collecting only presenter details rather than a full author list.
The call for symposia and abstracts will start September 28 and end November 25
The calls for workshops and satellite meetings will also be open during that period
The Pioneers Program submissions are now open [HERE].
This is our research seed funding grant, designed to support underserved researchers from Low- and Middle-Income Countries.

To further raise your interest in ISBNPA2027, we are making the recordings of the ISBNPA2026 keynotes available on our YouTube channel. The first one was from Professor Mark Tremblay, who is incidentally part of the Halifax organizing team.

MEMBERSHIP

Nominations for the Executive Committee

The call for nominations for the Executive Committee is near. ISBNPA members are invited to put themselves forward — or nominate a colleague — for:

Two Member-at-Large seats
Treasurer-elect

The call opens September 15th and closes October 5th. The elections are planned for November 16th–December 14th. Stay tuned as a memberbship eblast is coming soon with the nominations form.

Updating Everything at ISBNPA

Since our Annual General Meeting in Cádiz, the Executive Committee has been turning the AGM's priorities into action:

Governance overhaul under way. A full review of the By-laws, ten Standard Operating Procedures (and more on the way), and Terms of Reference for every standing committee is now in officer review, with EC sign-off targeted for October. The by-laws suggested changes will be voted by ISBNPA members later in the year.
New committee structure. A new Conference Committee takes strategic oversight of our scientific conferences. A new Journal Committee focuses on strategy and monitoring for our publications. And we're moving on a new ISBNPA Community Journal — name still to be decided — with a working group and project manager, Dr. Mira Vogelsand, now driving it forward.
A new approach to annual budgeting is underway.
A new team member. Sofia Franco has joined ISBNPA as our first in-person Executive Assistant.
More updates are on the way — stay tuned.

Webinars

September 15, 2026, 23:00 UTC (Sept 16, 9am AEST).

Mental Health and Wellbeing SIG | Food for Thought: From Evidence to Economics in Dietary Mental Health Care. Scott Teasdale, Adrienne O'Neil, and Alison Hayes trace the arc from population-level evidence to the CALM trial's implementation findings to the economic case for investment in dietary mental-health interventions. Register HERE

October 14, 2026, 14:00 UTC.

Cancer Prevention and Management SIG | Improving Survivorship Outcomes in AYAs Diagnosed with Cancer. Co-hosted with SBM's Cancer SIG and UKSBM — Erin Coffman and Kate Law on how physical activity and nutrition together support survivorship, treatment-side-effect management, and wellbeing in adolescents and young adults with cancer. Register HERE

Missed a past session? Watch all webinars and Annual Meeting recordings on our YouTube channel.