ELECTION OF IAC BOARD FOR 2009-2013 IAC Bylaws require the present IAC Board to elect a new Board for 2009-2013. The Bylaws specify that the new Board will consist of 5 new members and 10 members that currently serve on the present Board. In addition to these fifteen academies, Board membership will also include ex-officio voting membership from representatives of the InterAcademy Panel (IAP), InterAcademy Medical Panel (IAMP), and International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences (CAETS). Official Observers include representatives of the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the IAC host academy, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).
Following the January 2008 IAC Board meeting, the IAC and IAP Co-chairs appointed an IAC Board Election Commitee consisting of the IAC and IAP Co-Chairs, plus four additional persons. The IAC Board Election Committee consisted of Bruce Alberts, Lu Yongxiang, Howard Alper, Chen Zhu, Eduardo Krieger, Goverdhan Mehta, Robbert Dijkgraaf, and Martin Rees.
In accordance with prescribed IAC Rules of Procedure, the IAP was requested to communicate with all IAP academies to ascertain which IAP academies wished to serve on the IAC Board. As a second step, IAP then submitted the list of nominated academies to its members requesting them to indicate their preference for fifteen academies to serve on the Board for 2009-2013. The results of this polling were tabulated, providing a general ranking of preferred academies by the IAP membership. This information was important input for decisionmaking by the Election Committee; however, the Committee was not restricted by the results of this polling in making its decisions. Among the criteria for Committee consideration were the following:
- Balance between developing and industrialized countries; - Balance between the various regions of the world; - Participation in other international science organizations; and - Capacity to actively support the work of IAC
As a result of these inputs and deliberations, the Election committee proposed the following list of 15 academies as members of the IAC Board for 2009-2013:
1. Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS)
2. African Academy of Sciences
3. Argentina National Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences
4. Australian Academy of Sciences
5. Brazilian Academy of Sciences
6. Chinese Academy of Sciences
7. Académie des Sciences, France
8. German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
9. Indian National Science Academy
10. Indonesian Academy of Sciences
11. Science Council of Japan
12. Turkish Academy of Sciences
13. Academy of Sciences of South Africa
14. The Royal Society, United Kingdom
15. United States National Academy of Sciences
The new Board members are as follows:
In September 2008, the IAC Board members agreed to this slate of academies with a required two-thirds majority vote. The new Board will convene at its first meeting on 23 March 2009.