TWENTY THIRD TRIENNIAL MEETING OF COUNCIL
Sunday 22nd October 2017, 08.45-15.15hHilton Hotel Durban, South Africa, Meeting room: MKHOMAZIATTENDANCE:The Council Meeting was attended by more than 60 participants, including representatives from 25
IFCC Full members Societies.

MINUTES
1. OPENING AND WELCOME
The IFCC President, Prof. Maurizio Ferrari, welcomed representatives of IFCC Full Members,
Corporates members, Affiliate members as well as all those present in the Council Meeting.
Minutes of the 22nd Council, Istanbul, Turkey, 2014
The Council had previously approved these Minutes.
2. PRESIDENT’S REPORT
Prof. Maurizio Ferrari gave the President’s report of IFCC activities during the past threeyears. In particular, he highlighted:
 The vision of IFCC as stated during the SWOT situation analysis in January 2016: “Weadvance excellence in laboratory medicine for better healthcare worldwide”;
 The composition of the IFCC family which includes 92 Full Members, 12 Affiliate Members
6 Regional Organizations and 47 Corporate Members;
 The structure and organization of IFCC, including the current Executive Board and thenew Division: “Emerging Technologies Division”;
 The renewed IFCC Office and its staff in Milan;
 Excellent progress against the 33 action points in the strategic plan; International collaboration with other global organizations; Opportunities and challenges for IFCC in the next three years;
 The need to deal with the new MedTech Europe code of conduct and its impact onconferences; The need to deal with expected financial challenges;
 The IFCC Foundation for Emerging Nations (FEN) which has been established by IFCC in2016 as a non-profit making Charitable Trust; The new agreements which have been established with the EFLM, the NAFCC and newguidelines for Congresses;

13. TREASURER REPORT
Prof. Tomris Ozben gave the Treasurer’s report for the past three years. In particular, shehighlighted:
 The strategic aims of her term as Treasurer:o Improve efficiency in day to day accounting records
o Improving IFCC financial management to deal with the expected financial
challenges;o To find the right way for the IFCC portfolio investment; Audited annual accounts for the years 2015, 2016 and 2017 are available from the IFCC
Office.
 Prof. Ozben explained the income and expenditure account for 2017 in some details:
2017 January – September budget update: incomes actual: 715.138 CHF (expected1.053.500 CHF); in particular today it has been received 98% of Full members dues,
95,74% of Corporate members dues, 100% of Affiliate members dues. Sponsorships andAwards: 643.044 CHF, calculated income by year from the total amount of EuroMedLabParis and WolrdLab Paris 250.000 CHF.
Expenditure actual: 710.184 CHF (expected 1.779.155 CHF).
Credit Suisse total available cash: 843.662 CHF.
Credit Suisse investments: actual 4.05% return (net of fees and taxes 3.65%).
 Financial difficulties were anticipated by TO in 2018 due to shortage of incomes as nomajor conferences will be held in 2018 and increased expenditure (i.e. GeneralConference) since the income of IFCC in 2018 will be confined to the dues to be collected.
4. AWARDS COMMITTEE REPORT
Prof. Howard Morris gave a report on the IFCC Awards 2015-2017 and thanked theCommittee which was composed as follow: Howard Morris, Chair (AU), Larry Kricka (US),Muhidien Jouma (SY), Leslie Lai (MY), Grazyna Sypniewska (PL), Vanessa Steenkamp (ZA).
The Committeee received nominated candidates from 15 National Societies, 30 nominations
were received in total. Prof. Morris announced the following awards winners:
 IFCC Distinguished Clinical Chemist Award – Sponsored by IFCC: Prof. Yuk M. Dennis
LO; IFCC Distinguished International Services Award (1981-1987) - IFCC-Henry WishinskyAward for Distinguished International Services (since 1990) – SIEMENS: Prof. Jocelyn M.
B. HICKS; IFCC Award for Distinguished Contributions in Education – ABBOTT : Prof. Nader RIFAI; IFCC-Abbott Award for Significant Contributions in Molecular Diagnostics – ABBOTT
MOLECULAR: Ass. Prof. Susan BRANFORD; IFCC Distinguished Award for Laboratory Medicine and Patient Care – SEKISUI: Dr
Eleftherios DIAMANDIS; IFCC-Robert Shaffer Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Development ofStandards for Use in Laboratory Medicine Co-sponsored by NIST and CLSI – NIST /CLSI: Prof. Mathias M. MÜLLER;
 IFCC Young Investigator Award (from 2011) – IFCC: Dr Rojeet SHRESTHA;
 IFCC Hytest Distinguished Award for contributions to Cardiovascular Diagnostics HYTEST: Dr Jack H. LADENSON.
5. CORPORATE MEMBERS’ REPORTThe Corporate Member’s report was delivered by Dr. Rolf Hinzmann. In particular, hehighlighted:
 The corporate representatives who are members of the Executive Committees of IFCC'soperational units;2 The persons who were / are Corporate Members of the Congress Organizing Committee(COC); The CMs which during the last three years joined and left IFCC;
 The challenges the IVD industry is currently facing and how IFCC could help to support
some of these challenges;
 The results obtained during the SWOT analysis in 2016; The challenges from the MedTech Europe
6. EDUCATION AND MANAGEMENT DIVISION REPORT
Prof. Leslie Lai reported on behalf of the Education and Management Division. In particular, hehighlighted:
 Mission statement for the Education and Management Division The EMD contribution to IFCC Congresses;
 The achievements of the six Education and Management Division Committees:o Clinical Molecular Biology Curriculum;o Analytical Quality;
o Evidence Based Laboratory Medicine;o Clinical Laboratory Management;o Distance Learning;o Education in the Use of Biomarkers in Diabetes.
 The success of the IFCC-Abbott Visiting Lecturer Program;
7. COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBBLICATIONS DIVISION REPORT
Prof. Khosrow Adeli reported on behalf of the Communications and Publications Division. Inparticular, he highlighted:
 The membership of the Communications and Publications Division; The strategic plan of the Division;
 Development with the WEB site; Development with the e-Academy; Development with the Journal eJIFCC;
 Developments with the eNewsLetter; The use of social networks for IFCC;
 Symposia provided by the Division at several IFCC Conferences; The activities of the Committee for Public Relations; The activities of the Committee for Internet and e-learning.
 The IFCC CPD annual survey.
8. SCIENTIFIC DIVISION REPORT
Prof. Philippe Gillery reported on behalf of the Scientific Division. In particular, he highlighted:
 The membership of the Scientific division; The strategic plan of the Scientific Division; The structure and working of the Scientific division; The importance of partnership working of the Scientific Division included the others IFCCDivisions and the new ETD Division; The achievements of the Scientific Division:o The Scientific Division Symposia at the IFCC Congresses and Conferences,o The key publications in the scientific literature;o The six Scientific Division Committees and their work plans:- Nomenclature, Properties and Units (C-NPU) in collaboration with IUPAC- Molecular Diagnostics (C-MD)

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- Traceability in Laboratory Medicine (C-TLM)- Reference Intervals and Decision Limits (C-RIDL)- Standardization of Thyroid Function Tests (C-STFT)- Harmonization of Autoimmune Tests (C-HAT)o The achievements of the SD WGs: WG-CDT, WG-PAPPA, WG-GH, WG-TNI, WGPTH, WG-CSF, WG-C, WG APO MS; WG-PE, WG-FIT; Collaborative WGs: eg WG
HbA2 (ISTH), WG-SAU (NKPED), WG-SIA (ADA/EASD), WG-BMA (IDF).
o The opportunities for becoming involved in the work of the Scientific Division PG proposed a new Committee on bone metabolism starting from 2019 which should
merge the WG-PTH and the WG–BMA and a new WG on Liquid Biopsy.
• Future developments: Focus SD activities on new areas of laboratory medicine (egmolecular biology, proteomics), select and involve new members in SD Cs and WGs newskills required for the new areas of interest, promote the involvement of young scientists inSD activities with EB support, and ensure the maintenance of IFCC networks
9. OFFICERS AND MEMBERS OF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD 2018-2020
Prof. Bernard Gouget reported the results of the electronic voting and thanked the members ofthe IFCC – Nominations Committee composed Bernard Gouget (Chair), Païvi Laitinen,
Graham Beastall, Robert Christenson, Ana-Laetitia Maselli. Results of the votings, as follows: President: Howard Morris; Treasurer: Tomris Ozben;
 Secretary: David Kinniburgh; CMs Representative: Rolf Hinzmann; Regional representatives: Adekunle Bashiru Okesina (AFCC), Abderrazek Hedhili(AFCB), Sunil Sethi (APFCB), Sverre Sandberg (EFLM), Rosa Sierra-Amor(COLABIOCLI), Ann Gronowski (NAFCC).
10. VENUE FOR IFCC WORLDLAB and EUROMEDLABThe IFCC President Maurizio Ferrari presented the new venues for the next WorldLab andEuroMedLab Congresses:
 XXIV IFCC-EFLM EuroMedLab Munich 2021: Munich (Germany); XXV IFCC-EFLM WorldLab-EuroMedLab Rome 2023: Rome (Italy)
11. IFCC MEDALSThe IFCC President introduced the “IFCC Medals for Outstanding Service”, delivering theprize to the selected officers: Pävi Laitinen (FI), Cas Weykamp (NL), Paolo Mocarelli (IT) andin memory of Daniel Mazziotta (AR).
12. MOTIONS TO COUNCIL
No motion to the Council were proposed.
13. OTHERS BUSINESSOther business notified at least one month in advance to the IFCC Secretary. No Items had
been notified to Sergio Bernardini.
14. GENERAL DISCUSSION
Prof. Howard Morris, IFCC President elect, raised the question: what next for 2018-2020? He
concluded that:4

 Technological advances have led to integrated diagnostics blurring the boundariesbetween the traditional boundaries of laboratory medicine while increasing use ofInformatics and Management of Knowledge will be required to optimize the patient
diagnostic pathway; In the near future IFCC will face significant threats including: restricted financial resources
due to financial pressures on national society and corporate members including thediscontinuation of direct sponsorship of congress delegates and speakers by the IVD
industry (taking effect in January 2018 due to the Medtech Europe Code), the aging of theIFCC workforce and need to establish relevance to Young Scientists, challenges toretaining our current status with global clinical organizations due to the continuation of afragmented global voice for Laboratory Medicine, causing us to remain largely outside thedevelopment of global practice standards and guidelines and therefore increasing thedifficulty of maintaining the range and quality of services for IFCC members;
 To respond to these threats a key issue will be the providing laboratory medicine
specialists, including our partners in the IVD industry, with the skills to quantify the impactof clinical laboratory testing on the healthcare budget and to expand the discussion ofclinical laboratory testing from quality analytical metrics to include financial metrics forhealthcare delivery.
 It was suggested that IFCC should seek closer collaboration with clinical societies,
organizations involved in guideline development, and regulators, to increase the influenceof the federation on guidelines, at the same time avoiding duplication and inconsistency.
 Looking at the opportunities for IFCC, the major challenges consist in taking a step out of
the familiar and working to represent all of laboratory medicine and living up to the nameadopted in 1999: The International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory
Medicine.
How to meet these challenges? There are at least three pathways: 1) individual nationalsocieties reach out to colleagues in all the laboratory medicine professional organizations for
amalgamation, 2) increase the number Affiliate Members to include societies representing ourlaboratory medicine colleagues, or 3) accept more than one professional society as a memberof IFCC. 4) In addition, IFCC will have to find ways to become more attractive for corporate
members to stop the decline in corporate membership. This discussion will continue over theterm of the next Executive Board.
A general discussion ensued with a focus on the future of Laboratory Medicine and the role ofIFCC in managing the incoming challenges and the changes as outlined.
15. VOTE OF THANKS
Prof. Maurizio Ferrari, IFCC President, proposed a vote of thanks on behalf of the Executive
Board to all those who attended the Council meeting and invited them to the next Council,
taking place in Seoul, Korea, May 2020.
Prof. Sergio Bernardini closed the meeting at 16:00 h.
SIGNATURES
The above Minutes were approved on behalf of the IFCC Executive Board:
Maurizio Ferrari

Sergio Bernardini

President

Secretary5