This has certainly been an unprecedented time in the history of INSAR. After the cancellation of INSAR 2020, we had hoped to be in person for Boston 2021. Instead, our 20th Anniversary of the Annual Meeting was celebrated as our first fully virtual meeting. INSAR staff, board and presenters had to pivot quickly to accommodate the change; the meeting was ‘successful' in that we reached a diverse and wide-ranging audience with participants from over 60 countries, and our committees continued to find ways to connect during the meeting and beyond.

As we prepare for INSAR 2022 we are armed with new knowledge and experience from the last two years. One lesson learned was that online access to the meeting was feasible, and allowed many more members around the world to participate and engage in the latest autism research without the burden and expense of travel. While this certainly is a plus, we miss the in-person networking, and knowledge exchange so vibrant during our in-person meetings. As a result, the Board has fully embraced Hybrid meetings going forward. Hybrid meetings (both in person and online options) allow our attendees to choose how they access INSAR meeting information. But the choice of Hybrid comes at a cost. It is more expensive for the Society to put on hybrid meetings which are essentially two meetings. Still, this is the right choice at the right time. Despite the struggles of the past year, we are inspired by the continued dedication and creativity of our volunteer committee members who have addressed many of the most pressing issues we are currently facing.

A goal of INSAR is to increase our inclusion and diversity across all aspects of the Society, and an important step towards this goal is to increase access. The reality, however, is that we will need to offset the increased expenses for hybrid meetings. In addition to utilizing our Meetings reserve fund, there will be an increase in non-student registration rates and an increase in dues for Full and Affiliate memberships to help fund the additional expenses. We also count on continued support from our Sponsors to help fund future hybrid meetings and year-round activities.

We remain committed to increasing our global representation and earlier this year introduced no-cost membership for Low and Middle Income Country (LMIC) students (https://www.autism-insar.org/page/LMICstudentmember) and continue reduced dues rates for LMIC Full and Affiliate members and also lowered LMIC registration rates for the meeting.

As you consider attending INSAR 2022, whether in-person or hybrid, I hope you share my excitement about connecting with colleagues while expanding your knowledge of research across many disciplines which is so unique to our event. Program development is in progress and information on our Keynote Speakers is coming soon! Watch for more details. For those attending in-person, we have negotiated great rates at select hotels in Austin. Use the links on our website to make your hotel reservations at either the meeting hotel or overflow hotel now!

Reminder: Renew your INSAR Membership for 2022 before December 31, 2021 to renew at the current 2021 dues amounts. There will be a dues increase taking effect in January 2022 and we don't want you to risk any lapse in membership benefits.

Thank you for your support of INSAR.

Connie Kasari, PhD
President, International Society for Autism Research
University of California, Los Angeles 

https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2649 

 

INSAR 2022 Annual Meeting Information

New INSAR Website
If you have not visited the INSAR website recently, please do. Thanks to the significant efforts of Emily Mathis in the INSAR administrative offices and the Website Taskforce the Society website has transformed to a more modern and user‐friendly format. The landing page now scrolls to allow for greater breadth of available information, such as Latest News, career postings, and links to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The new web platform will allow for more flexibility in updating and organization of the content resulting in better communication of the Society's numerous initiatives and programs. In addition to the new website, we have expanded our Social Media platforms to include Instagram. Thanks to the efforts of the Communications Committee, INSAR communication and visibility is increasing across all platforms.

INSAR Global Initiatives
INSAR established a Global Senior Leaders Committee (GSL) in 2019. The goal of this initiative is to create a global network of autism research leaders who will serve as INSAR Country Representatives, thereby leading their local research community to improve research and service in their country and fostering a trans‐national research culture. The Country Representatives will also provide the Society with information on global research developments and collaborative opportunities. Last month the GSL Committee recruited its first cohort of leaders from 35 countries in the Eastern Mediterranean, Africa, South America, South‐East Asia, the Western Pacific, Europe and North America. GSL Country Representatives will serve for an initial two‐year term followed by a two‐year term as a Past‐GSL Representative to ensure continuity. There will be an annual call for applications for GSL Country Representatives with the goal to expand recruitment and to increase the number of countries represented in the GSL over the next decade.

The INSAR Cultural Diversity Committee has been hard at work on a new initiative to be launched in 2021, the Cultural Diversity Career Advancement Program (C‐CAP). C‐CAP is an initiative of the INSAR Cultural Diversity Committee co‐chairs (Shoba S. Meera, Sandra Vanegas, Gulnoza Yakubova, and Marshalyn Yeargin‐Allsopp) and several other volunteers that have formed a planning committee. The purpose of this program is to grow the number and quality of research and researchers from primarily low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMIC) using a mentor‐based format. More information will be provided to all society members as it becomes available.

The INSAR Board decided to continue the INSAR Regional Meeting for 2022–2023.

The regional meetings, co‐hosted by INSAR, are held outside of North America and Europe. The Regional Meetings have been held in China in 2015 (Shanghai), South Africa in 2017 (Cape Town) and in Chile in 2019 (Puerto Varas). They offer the opportunity to bring an INSAR meeting to locations where our members may be less able to attend the INSAR Annual Meetings, and/or where local organizers are interested in building a stronger autism research community. Submissions for Regional Meeting proposals can be made online through the INSAR website through March 23, 2021.

INSAR Strategic Planning

In the INSAR Board held its annual Strategic Planning Meeting on September 14 and 15th of this year via Zoom with 2 hour sessions each day that were staggered to enable people in time zones in Europe, Africa, North American and Australia to attend. Each year the meeting considers how to best meet or expand the mission of the society using the Strategic Initiatives (https://www.autism‐insar.org/page/Strategic) as guidelines: (a) Increasing the quality, diversity and relevance of the conduct and communication of autism science, (b) Cultivating interdisciplinary and translational research, (c) Representing and serving a diverse, global community, (d) Fostering opportunities and the career development of the next generation of researchers, (e) Promoting INSAR as the premier society for autism research, (f) Disseminating knowledge to inform global research, policy, practice and public understanding, and (g) Fostering understanding, communication and collaboration between autism researchers and people affected by autism.
In terms of meeting these goals, six top priorities were developed for action this year. First, an annual report will be developed prior to the 2021 conference to provide all members with a more detailed accounting of the Society's status, accomplishments and aspirations for development. Second, a series of ongoing webinars spotlighting diversity research and issues will be initiated in 2021. Third, membership recruitment of under‐represented and global populations will be emphasized in leadership, committees, and all levels of the society. This is already well underway with the efforts of the Global Senior Leaders committee recent call for National Representative nominations and the recent addition of diverse and global members to the Student and Trainee Committee. The fourth goal is to highlight articles from the society's journal Autism Research biannually on the INSAR website. This will help meet the goal of disseminating recent research findings to both Society members and the community, as well as promote ongoing dialogue on the current science of autism research. Fifth, work with the Student & Trainee, Early Career, Autistic Researchers, Cultural Diversity and Senior Global Leaders Committee to develop webinars on career development and research for members across a global and diverse community of researchers. Finally, the sixth goal is to revise the procedure of the development of INSAR Briefs to provide more editorial support, increase the rate of development of briefs, and broaden the topical focus of the briefs.

No increase in dues for 2021

This being 2020, the Board unanimously and easily decided that any small bit of good news would be appreciated. So, there will be no increase in membership dues for INSAR members in 2021.

Board nominations

Diverse and global membership recruitment will also be a goal to consider in the nominations for Board positions within the Society. The current criteria for nominations for board positions include society membership, significant history of research contributions and prior history of INSAR service. The Board will work with Nominations & Elections Committee to develop a system whereby nominations will consider the need to balance the society leadership with respect to gender, research discipline, global region and racial‐ethnic‐cultural backgrounds.

The Autistic Researchers Committee (ARC) workshops

The ARC held two very successful virtual workshops in different time zones that were attended by about 150 participants. Fifty participants completed surveys. These respondents were mostly students/post‐docs (58%) and faculty (20%), with 44% of respondents identifying as autistic and 31% identifying as family members of an autistic person. Though most attendees were living in the USA (48%), others participated from Australia, Canada the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Trinidad, South Africa, the Philippines, Slovenia, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Pakistan, Finland, Spain, France, and Germany, https://www.autism‐insar.org/page/InsarARC.

On the recent loss of two INSAR Lifetime Achievement Awardees

Margot Prior

INSAR, the global autism community, and all of clinical child psychology lost a great leader in September with the passing of Margot Prior (1937–2020). Dr. Prior is well known for her pioneering and multidisciplinary work in language disorders and in autism, as well as symptom presentation in subgroups. She was an indefatigable program builder, a true globalist, and worked for social justice throughout her career. She became the first female professor of Clinical Psychology in in Australia in 1989 and established the first clinical training program in that country. She was the Chair of the Social and Human Sciences Network for UNESCO (2005–2007). She was instrumental in developing the Olga Tennison Autism Research Center at La Trobe University established in 2008. Some of her other honors included being made a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and of the Australian Psychological Society, where she also received the President's Award for Distinguished Contribution to Psychology in Australia. In 2018 received the INSAR Lifetime Achievement Award. For more details about remarkable the life and times of Dr. Prior please see the obituary written by Cheryl Dissanayake, from which this text was derived, https://asfar.org.au/vale‐professor‐margot‐prior‐1937‐2020/.

Ed Ritvo

In June of 2020 the Society and the global autism community also lost one of the scientists responsible moving the science of autism beyond the conjecture of the psychodynamic model to the contemporary view of its neurodevelopmental nature. Edward Ross Ritvo, M.D., senior professor, administrator, teacher, and mentor at UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute passed way at age 90 in his Los Angeles home on June 10th. Dr. Ritvo was a pioneer in the field of autism. He was one of the primary thought and research leaders to establish autism as a neurologic and genetic condition with research in the 1960s through 1980s. He conducted one of the first epidemiological studies of autism in Utah employing the rich genealogical records of the Mormon community in the state. He also went on to lead research on the roles of sleep, neurophysiological differences, perinatal risk factor and biomarkers in basic and clinical studies of autism. Ed was also a consummate researcher and clinician. Even though his work was fundamental to the paradigm shift from the psychodynamic to biological model of autism in the 70's, he had extensive training in psychoanalysis and worked hard to maintain expertise in both the biological and psychological disciplines. Dr. Ritivo was an avid skier, pilot, husband, and father whose accomplishments are of a truly historic nature in the Society. His last paper was published in February of 2020, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803‐020‐04396‐5.

For additional details please see the obituaries provided by his colleague Dr. James McCraken, and Dr. Eva Ritvo his daughter, which that provided the sources for this text.

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/latimes/obituary.aspx?n=edward‐ross‐ritvo&pid=196332027; https://www.mdedge.com/neurology/article/224389/coronavirus‐updates/tribute‐edward‐ross‐ritvo‐md‐1930‐2020.

Mundy, Peter. (November 2, 2020). INSAR's Strategic Planning Meeting, 2021 Dues, Board Nominations, Autistic Researchers Committee, Memorials, INSAR 2021 Hybrid 20th Anniversary Annual Meeting. Autism Research Journal. doi: 10.1002/aur.2429