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The 2015 SBIC election has selected Mike Hannon (Birmingham, UK) as the President-Elect. He will serve as the SBIC President for the period 2016–2018. Roland Siegel (Zurich, Switzerland) and Charlie Riordan (Delaware, USA) have been selected as the Secretary and the Treasurer, respectively, for 2015–2019. In addition, three new Council members for 2015–2019, Claudia Blindauer (Warwick, UK); Christian Hartinger (Auckland, NZ); and Takashi Hayashi (Osaka, Japan), have been elected, replacing Mike Hannon, Nils Metzler-Nolte, and Roland Siegel. We thank Wonwoo Nam, Greame Hanson, the temporary treasurer team (Alison Butler, Roland Siegel, and Shinobu Itoh), Mike Hannon, Nils Metzler-Nolte, and Roland Siegel for their outstanding service during their tenures as the Secretary, the Treasurer, and Councilors.

The 17th ICBIC met in Beijing (July 20–25), where the SBIC Early Career Awardees Akif Teczan (2014, UCSD) and Serena DeBeer (2015, MPI) delivered their award lectures. This, the first ICBIC to be held in China, was organized by Zijian Guo (chair) and co-chairs Lin Guo and Xiaoda Yang. In addition to highly successful scientific sessions, ICBIC17 was the venue for the SBIC Council meeting and the SBIC annual general meeting. The organizers of the forthcoming BIC meetings EuroBIC13 (August 28–September 1, 2016, Budapest, Hungary); LABICV (October 18–22, 2016, Querétaro, México); and AsBIC 8 (December 4–9, 2016, Auckland, New Zealand) presented highlights of their meetings. Their websites have been set up and are ready to provide initial information about the meetings.

Masao Ikeda-Saito,

SBIC President

Sendai, Japan