ISBT Standing Committee of the ISBT Academy
Chairperson and committee
Chair: Jill Storry (Sweden)
Vice-Chairperson: Cynthia So-Osman (The Netherlands)
Members:
Lani Lieberman (Canada)
Celina Montemayor, (USA)
Ratti Ram Sharma (India)
Dheeraj Khetan (India)
Sophie Uyoga (Kenya)
Sandra Nance, USA
Sally Lam (Malaysia)
Clotilde Carsolio Estrada (Mexico)
Dina Ekram (Egypt)
Brigitte Flesch (Germany)
Marion Vermeulen, South Africa
Syeldy Sasongko, The Netherlands
Zainab Harb, Bahrain
Following dissolution of the Education Special Projects Committee in December 2024, Sandra Nance was invited to join the SCA as a member responsible for education projects. The SCA was further expanded by inviting the Chair of the I Try It mentorship program (currently Dr Vermeulen) and the coordinator the ISBT’s mentorship platform (Dr Sasongko). Dr Harb has replaced Sr Sasongko, as a representative of the Young Professionals Council and will continue to monitor the Mentorship platform. The Terms of Reference have been revised to reflect the composition of the SCA.
Furthermore, The Academy Standing Committee is supported by Caroline Hochheuser, Eszter Herczenik and Jenny White (ISBT Academy Support, Scientific Officer, and Executive Director respectively), and works closely with ISBT Secretary General Gwen Clarke, ISBT Scientific Secretary Jason Acker, and Chair of the ISBT Foundation, Ravi Reddy.
Meetings and Teleconferences
The SCA meet in person at the ISBT regional conference in Milan in June 2025 and virtually in February 2026. The executive team, consisting of the Chair, co-Chair, and the ISBT office staff, had a virtual meeting in July 2025, and an whole day meeting at the ISBT office in February 2026.
Activities during the period
Financial Support for educational events (April 2025 – March 2026)
A total of 34 applications for Financial Support were received for evaluation. Of these, only two applications were rejected following careful review by the SCA, and the Academy approved 32 applications for a total amount of € 248, 500. There was a wide geographical spread, and nineteen countries representing all WHO regions were represented for different projects. These included Argentina, Brazil, Cameroon (x3), Chile, Egypt (x2), India (x4), Kenya, Mongolia, Namibia (AfSBT), Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan (x3), Phillippines, Senegal, Tanzania (x4), Uganda. Applications from Canada, The Netherlands and South Africa were approved funding to support the attendance of delegates from low and middle-income countries to their conferences.
Reports from the events supported by Academy funding have been published in Transfusion Today as and when they are received. A total of 27 reports were published during this reporting period.
Applications to use ISBT logo (April 2025 – March 2026)
Use of the ISBT logo was approved for 5 of six applications.
ISBT Highlight Days (April 2025 – March 2026)
One ISBT Highlights Day was supported during this financial year, and was held in conjunction with the 13th National Conference of the Indian Society of Transfusion Medicine (TRANSMEDCON 2025) in Jaipur.
Academy Days at ISBT Congresses
A well-attended Academy Day was held at the ISBT meeting in Milan in June 2025. Eight sessions divided into two tracks covered topics in the following areas: The many faces of plasma; Blood group update; Innovations and Complications; Donors with diseases; Training and education; Bugs and blood; From guidelines to practice and The mentoring journey. While no specific Academy Day was held at the joint BLOOD/ISBT regional meeting in Perth, the SCA Chair and Co-chair gave input into the program. We have worked hard on planning the Academy Day program for the upcoming International ISBT meeting in Kuala Lumpur, and look forward to a successful and rewarding day.
Other matters
The executive group of the SCA has reviewed and edited not only the Terms of Reference mentioned above but also updated the guidelines on the Website to make the application process easier. We tested the concept of expanding from two to three deadlines per year and this hopefully has improved the process for applicants.
We plan to introduce a new concept regarding funding: “Train-the-trainer” concept: Together with ISBT Working Parties, workshops with a ‘train-the-trainer’ concept will be developed in the near future. Organizations in low and lower-middle income countries can apply for these workshops to be given at their institution. The administration of these new forms of Academy support will be handled by the Central Office.
Updates from I TRY IT and mentorship programme
I TRY IT
Three grants were awarded at the end of 2025 for the best protocols that had been developed in previous editions of course 1 (protocol development). The current course (also a protocol writing course) received a record number of 74 applications, out of which 6 participants were selected, coming from Timor Leste, Phillippines, Papua New Guinea, Albania, Malaysia and Pakistan. Protocols cover all 3 offered topics: 2 are in Immunohematology, 2 in Transfusion-transmitted diseases (TTID), 2 Clinical Transfusion.
To avoid drop-outs after the congress, the I TRY IT program was shifted to an earlier timeline so that the last lecture will be held during ISBT Kuala Lumpur in June 2026.
ISBT Mentorship Programme
As mentioned above, oversight of the Mentorship programme will be the responsibility of the Young Professionals Council, although the administrative part of the mentorship programme will be handled by the office. There are currently have ~100 mentees, and 70 mentors.
Other news in the Education section
Sandra Nance continues to work on and edit case studies, primarily from the Immunohematology and Rare Donor Working Parties. Following her approval, the cases are converted into the Education platform template for upload to the website.
The ISBT office are responsible for sending out the two very popular monthly educational newsletters from the Central Office:
- #LearningUpdates
- Educational eNews
New ideas for content or underrepresented topics are always welcome and can be sent to academy@isbtweb.org or science@isbtweb.org.
