The Society held its 114^th Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Thursday 10 July 2025, at which a number of changes to the Society’s articles were put forward for a special resolution vote from members.

Following best practice, reviewing our governance arrangements allows us to align our framework with our strategic focus and the wider sector landscape, while providing benefits internally to streamline and create a more effective structure.

These changes were the result of an 18-month governance review process, approved by the Council of Trustees in 2023. Two stakeholder groups were involved, with a 4-week consultation period on the proposed changes run with all board, committee and panel members from November to December 2024. A good level of feedback was received from across the governance structure.

This feedback informed the changes, five of which required changes to the Society’s articles, and it’s those that were presented to members for approval. These were: 

• The merging of the current Executive Management Committee and Nominations Panel to create a People, Remuneration and Nominations Committee 

• The merging of the current Audit Committee and Finance Committee to create a joint Audit and Finance Committee 

• The merging of the current Conferences Committee, Training Theme Panel, Basic Biosciences Theme Panel and the public engagement aspects of the remit of the Education, Public Engagement and Training Committee, to introduce a new Conferences and Training Panel 

• Changing the role of Society Chair to that of Vice President and shortening the term of office for both the President and Vice President roles 

• Reducing the number of Society Trustee roles from 13 to 11, including the option to recruit up to 3 independent Trustees, all with standardised terms of office 

The further three changes which were presented for information were:

• Reduce the number of panels, (currently named Research Areas 1 to 6) to up to four groups, to include the remit of the current Clinical and Translational Research Theme Panel, and introduce closer working relationships with journal editorial boards
• Introduce a new Policy, Education and Communities Committee to include the remit of the current Policy Advisory Panel and Education, Public Engagement and Training Committee (not including public engagement activities)
• Re-introduce the Scientific Activities Committee

Read more about the full rationale behind these changes, together with the updated Society Articles, in this document.