Physiological Societies Across the Globe Unite in an Effort to Handle the COVID-19 Pandemic

The year 2020 will forever be cast in a negative light because of the coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19) pandemic that changed everyday life globally, with nearly 220 countries and territories experiencing its devastating impact. As 2020 came to an end, based on the data supplied by the World Health Organization, the novel coronavirus had infected over 81 million people worldwide and nearly 1.8 million people had died because of complications of COVID-19 (1). These numbers continue to grow at alarming rates. Whole countries or states across the globe have enacted rules designed to limit the spread of the virus by requiring inhabitants to stay home and adhere to social distancing; nonessential businesses have closed their doors, including restaurants, theaters, performing arts centers, barber shops, health clubs, and even churches. In many cases, schools have changed to online learning or at least markedly limited face-to-face activities; many youth, college, and professional sporting events have been canceled; and national and international travel has been curtailed. In many places, science laboratories were shuttered for months. The changes in life precipitated by COVID-19 have the potential to change human behavior forever and have certainly changed the everyday life of biomedical researchers and educators (2).

Despite the global anxiety posed by the novel coronavirus, a bright spot is how it brought together teams of scientists across the globe who cooperated to develop treatments that hopefully will help to bring an end to fatalities linked to the pandemic (3). Remarkably, by the time 2020 came to an end, several manufacturers (Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna) had begun to release vaccines in multiple countries with high efficacy to control the devastating actions of the virus that causes COVID-19 (4). In fact, there are over 50 candidate vaccines under development globally, allowing us to see at least a glimpse of that proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel.”

In late summer 2020, the Board of the General Assembly of the International Union of Physiological Sciences (BGA/IUPS) reached out to member societies to gather information on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their society operations and the activities of their members. Feedback was received from 25 physiological societies representing Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe/European Union, the Mideast, and Oceania. Table 1 and Table 2 capture the responses received to two pointed questions, respectively:

Table 1.

How has COVID-19 impacted the functioning of your Society?

Member Organization	Response
American Physiological Society	The most obvious functional impact was the almost complete shutdown of our main headquarters in Rockville, MD for several months. The entire operation was transformed into a virtual effort; this is ongoing. We anticipate that a large part of the operation will continue in virtual mode into 2021. Some of our colleagues will continue working remotely for the foreseeable future. A survey revealed that a large percentage of staff find they can work efficiently from home, and our significant achievements during the pandemic have confirmed that this is the case. The absence of major commuting time for many staff residing in the Washington DC area has played a major role in this increase in efficiency, a positive impact of the pandemic. From a member point of view, we have achieved, and in many cases exceeded, the goals laid out in our last strategic plan, despite the pandemic. Interactions with member leaders on APS council, committees, in the sections, and in publications areas have continued with little disruption. The pandemic has also pushed APS more quickly than anticipated into the virtual meetings arena. In the past few months, we have hosted highly successful scientific and education meetings, webinars, town halls, and career development programs in which thousands of members have participated—many more, in fact, than for the equivalent live sessions at face-to-face meetings. The cancellation of our major meeting of the year at Experimental Biology (EB) was a difficult decision made in the early stages of the pandemic, in January, but turned out to be wise and necessary in retrospect. While the time frame of this decision did not allow us to replace EB fully in April 2020, we did organize a limited number of sessions online that were very well attended and received by our members. The 2021 EB meeting is also virtual, but the long lead-up time has allowed us to organize a more complete virtual meeting, using a professional online platform, with the other contributing societies that normally participate in EB. One positive effect of the new virtual life of APS is that we can serve our international members more effectively. Since our leadership meetings are virtual, it is now possible to envisage increasing the international representation in these efforts by, among other considerations, carefully taking account of geographic diversity and international time zones during the organization process. Another positive effect of the pandemic is that potential budget shortfalls (e.g., reduced journal subscription revenue, reduced meeting registration income) have been to some extent balanced by a large reduction in travel and associated costs normally expended to assemble committee members and leaders for a variety of meetings. It is likely that reduced travel expenses will be a permanent feature of our budgeting even when we move out of pandemic mode.
Australian Physiological Society	The major impact has been the cancellation of our major events such as the 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting and our PhD research training award (a 2-day onsite research training event). This has deprived all our members of valuable opportunities to present their research and to network. Council has continued to function mostly unhindered, with twice-yearly Council meetings being moved from in-person to online. Our Annual General Meeting of all members is this year planned to be held online.
Bangladesh Society of Physiologists	Like other organizations, in this pandemic-induced lockdown, the Society activities are affected. Seminars and the meeting of the Society have been postponed. Very limited conversation regarding society activities has been made over the telephone as all the senior members are forced to stay home for health risk. By arranging Zoom meetings, efforts for regular meetings of the Society have been made to maintain the activity in a very limited scale. Despite this adverse situation, the Society successfully published its journal within the stipulated time.
Bulgarian Society for Physiological Sciences	Society members write and publish articles how to fight the still ongoing COVID-19 pandemic such as the recently published review, “Emerging Neurological and Psychobiological Aspects of COVID-19 Infection” in Brain Sciences 2020, vol. 10, issue 11, 852, doi:10.3390/brainsci10110852. For the 3rd Conference “Neurosciences—from Theory to Experiment and Practice,” held in the University Campus Bachinovo of South-West University in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria 23–25 October 2020, all participating physiologists dedicated a special meeting discussing the challenges of COVID-19 pandemic and how to counteract it.
Canadian Physiological Society	We held our first official Society symposium in May 2019 after 7–8 yr without having a meeting. We hoped to continue with this by hosting another symposium in May 2020, but this had to be cancelled due to lockdowns in Canada. Overall, the main objective of the Society has been to work towards re-energizing a national community for physiology, with a focus on sponsoring trainee activities. Our primary planning activities have been to look ahead towards late 2021, when we hope we can continue with symposium organization and other trainee activities.
Chilean Society of Physiological Sciences	The Society’s annual meeting was cancelled, but we managed to run the 2020 annual meeting in a virtual form. This activity has been very well valued. To open our region to Latin America researchers in physiology, we decided to have our 2020 annual meeting as a joint meeting with the Latin American Association of Physiological Sciences. We had more than 650 registered scientists for the meeting. This collaborative activity was a perfect platform for young researchers to show their data and establish new contacts with not only physiologists from LA but from all continents. Since March, the monthly meetings of the directory board of the Society have been virtual meetings, and the Society operations were unaltered. Our general feeling is that it was helpful to meet without the typical problems finding a suitable place and time to meet. The Society organizes regular selected seminars that have been cancelled since March. Mainly because we, as researchers and teachers, were involved in a new way to conduct these two activities virtually. This is a major weakness since there was not an option for interacting and establishing networks by meeting, talking, and discussing with the speaker.
Chinese Association for Physiological Sciences	The COVID-19 had quite a negative impact on the routine operation of our Society in the beginning. Luckily, we transformed and advanced the management in terms of the operation. For instance, we have adopted the online application system for the review and approval of all the documents. The Zoom Cloud Meetings system has been used for our online meetings weekly so that all our directors and colleagues could easily communicate with each other, especially during the COVID-19 period.
Chinese Physiological Society in Taipei	The election of new Society council members was conducted through voting by post instead of our usual vote in-person due to the cancellation of our annual joint conference with other societies in March. Our council meeting was also conducted through web meeting to avoid gathering. Although the large-scale joint conference in Taipei was cancelled in March, another scientific meeting and teaching workshop hosted by the Society took place for our members in August 2020. We are watching closely with strict precautions to adjust the schedule for our council meetings in 2020/2021. Overall, the Society has functioned regularly with minimal obstacles due to COVID-19.
Cuban Society of Biomedical Basic Sciences (formerly Cuban Society of Physiological Sciences)	The Society had to respond and adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on academic and clinical instruction. Most of the preclinical conferences and scientific meetings were substituted by “online” activities. Revista Cubana de Investigaciones Biomédicas continues its work as usual. The editorial staff works at home to produce the journal that is now first among the Cuban scientific journals according to the last Scimago Journal Rank and is third among the Cuban journals in Google Scholar because of the number of received citations.
Finnish Physiological Society	In Finland, emergency conditions were declared due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. This meant the closure of the Society, travel bans, and isolation. The Society had to hold its annual meeting on short notice as a remote meeting. To guarantee its legitimacy, the Governmental umbrella organizations of the scientific societies quickly made the necessary changes to the rules. The Society changed its scholarship policy so that instead of congress trips, scholarships were also awarded for other purposes. Grants to be used in 2020 were transferred for use in 2021 without a separate application. The Society moved to continuous application policy instead of fixed dates.
French Society of Physiology	COVID-19 impacted our Society at the organizational level. However, we have overcome this unprecedented situation. We have organized the meetings of Scientific and Administrative Councils via Zoom. We are going to organize, via internet call system, the annual General meeting. As is the case for most of the national and international Congresses, we postponed the annual Congress of the Society that was scheduled for June 2020.
German Physiological Society	All meetings in 2020 (i.e., Europhysiology2020 and the annual meeting of the young physiologists) were cancelled. All society board meetings were transformed to online meetings. We plan online meetings for young physiologists, the general assembly of our society, as well as “a day of physiology” covering research aspects for October 2020.
Iranian Society of Physiology and Pharmacology	Since starting the COVID-19 pandemic, we increased our communications with the members in virtual space through websites, channels, e-mails, etc. to share information and new findings. The Society has encouraged physiologists and pharmacologists to design research projects about COVID-19, especially on the virus deleterious effects on the body physiology and potential treatments. We have also published a weekly newsletter to provide an overview of the COVID-19 situation in Iran and the world with the latest scientific news.
Israel Society of Physiology and Pharmacology	We had to cancel a big meeting, and we are unsure if we can conduct our annual meeting.
Life Science Switzerland (LS2)-Physiology	We had to adapt quickly to the pandemic situation and to cope with the COVID-19 crisis. We could not have our annual meeting on-site as planned, but we updated the program to offer an online version and to include extra short talks to increase the knowledge exchange among participants: https://meetings.ls2.ch/physiology2020.
Physiological Society of India	The Society organized the following five national webinar-based awareness programs against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic: Dept. of Sports Science, University of Calcutta; 21 August 2020 via Stream Yard and YouTube; Effect of Yoga in Sports Performance during COVID-19 Dept. of Physiology, Midnapur College (Autonomous), Midnapore, West Bengal organized 1-day program; 29 August 2020; Development & Maintenance of Physical & Mental Wellness during COVID-19 Pandemic Dept. of Sports Science, University of Calcutta; Application of Biomechanics in Sports Performance—A COVID-19 Perspective Dept. of Sports Science, University of Calcutta; 20 September 2020; Exercise Program and Nutritional Supplement to prevent COVID-19 and other viral infections Dept. of Physiology, Berhampur Girls’ College, Berhampur, Murshidabad, West Bengal; 25–27 September 2020; Three-Day National Webinar on COVID-19: Fighting Together and Moving Forward
Physiological Society of Japan	The 97th Society Annual Meeting was Mar 17–19, 2020; the outbreak of COVID-19 occurred at the final stage of the meeting preparation. The meeting presidents made a courageous decision at the last minute to give up the on-site meeting, and to hold only in the presentation abstract issue of the official society journal, The Journal of Physiological Sciences. The council meeting and the general assembly were held in a hybrid style of on-site and online. The 98th Annual Meeting is scheduled for Mar 28–30, 2021. In Oct 2020, the meeting presidents decided to hold the meeting online.
Physiological Society of Nepal	The biggest impact of the COVID-19 on the Society and our members is the financial aspect. All our members are employed as physiology teachers in various medical colleges in the country. With the closure, the colleges adopted a “no work no pay” policy for the first few months. However, lately, most colleges have started to give salaries, but heavily reduced. The theory classes of the undergraduate courses are being conducted online. Some brief orientation and training were conducted to familiarize teachers to such methods. Because travel and movements are restricted, our members have been mostly confined to home. Research labs and works have stopped altogether. Our Society’s regular meetings are on hold, and previously planned symposia, conference have been postponed indefinitely.
Physiological Society of Nigeria	Ordinarily, the Society Annual Scientific Conference and Annual General Meeting occur between the months of August and September. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to postpone the conference to next year, when it is hoped the situation will be better. The Society is considering the possibility of hosting the AGM through an online mode. In the last 6 mo, higher institutions have been closed. Members of the Society have had to work from home, and this has affected negatively teaching and research.
Physiological Society of New Zealand	Our major activity is to run our annual meeting, which is part of a larger professional society meeting called MedSciNZ. This year’s meeting was cancelled, but we held a virtual meeting which was transformed into an awards symposium that was held over 2 half days. This symposium was formatted to allow us to present our student, emerging researcher, and early career researcher awards, plus our triannual medal for excellence in physiological research that is awarded to an established physiologist. We have resorted to running the Society via virtual Council meetings and have a virtual Annual General Meeting scheduled for mid-October.
Slovak Physiological Society	Fortunately, we just managed to organize the annual meeting of the Society in February 2020 before the pandemic strike. Other smaller events with participation of our Society had to be cancelled. Committee meetings and correspondence (e.g., evaluation of the best posters at the annual meeting and the best publication 2019 of the Society members) are done electronically.
Slovenian Physiological Society	Despite the COVID-19 crises, the Society is active. We have organized in September a general assembly meeting via the videoconference Cisco Webex platform. On 10 December 2020 we are organizing the annual society meeting. The Day of Physiology 2020, which takes place each year on the day the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded. We will have lectures and workshops for the general public, biology teachers, students, members of the Society, etc. on physiology of inflammation, with the focus on hepatitis C and SARS-CoV-2 virus physiology and the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting will take place via videoconference using the Zoom platform.
Spanish Society of Physiological Sciences	Due to COVID-19 the biannual meeting of our Society, planned to be held at Badajoz in October 2020, had to be suspended, and has been postponed until 2022. Payment for 2020 memberships was suspended this year.
The Physiological Society	We established a COVID-19 Advisory Panel to provide an evolving understanding of the physiological and pathophysiological mechanisms underpinning this disease with the aim of enhancing patient outcomes. They addressed questions from clinicians during the summer. Through social media, video, and our media work, we have a page hosting our coronavirus-related content including explainer videos, blogs, and our in-house podcast. We highlighted the work of our members in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic to the government and organizations such as Public Health England. (Information can be found at https://www.physoc.org/covid19/) Online training courses (using videos and e-learning platforms) and guidance on providing a supportive environment for the management of stress We have provided financial aid to members in the most difficult of financial situations—including those resulting from COVID-19. We have run two professional development webinar series for members, bringing together expertise from across the physiological sciences, from both an academic and career perspective, to give advice and tips on areas such as publishing, social media engagement and improving resilience. The Journal of Physiology Virtual Journal Club is a platform for physiologists to meet on a regular basis to discuss papers that have been published in the journal. The Journal of Physiology and Experimental Physiology are committed to making all potentially relevant research papers free to access. We launched a report recommending that the Government initiate a “National Covid-19 Resilience Programme” to bring together a package of measures to support older people through the lockdown and beyond, keeping them healthy and resilient over the winter. (Information can be found at https://www.physoc.org/policy/covid19resilience/)
Turkish Association of Physiological Sciences	We were thoroughly affected by COVID-19. We could not organize the National Physiology Congress and other meetings. The Society managed to publish a Human Physiology Textbook; members of the Society broadly contributed to writing the chapters.

Table 2.

How has your Society assisted its members to deal with the impact of COVID-19 on their teaching and research?

Member Organization	Response
American Physiological Society	As part of our information blitz, the September issue of The Physiologist was dedicated to the COVID-19 pandemic. We published articles on maintaining a sense of community during the pandemic, an interview with a member including how the pandemic has affected her research, two articles about the physiology of the SARS-Cov-2 virus and infection, and an article about efforts being made on the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. We provided a discussion forum, inviting APS members to share their experiences via e-mail (tphysmag@physiol.org) and by Twitter. We published a selection of these comments in the September issue of The Physiologist. We transformed a section of our website into a COVID-19 resource center that collects and displays relevant scientific literature, information, and news related to the pandemic. The information section contains helpful hints and tips on pandemic-induced changes in work style and career development, such as video interviewing, connecting with co-workers during the pandemic, and how to get promoted when you are working from home. It also provides information on getting involved as a volunteer to help society and science in various ways during the pandemic, up to and including being a vaccine volunteer. https://www.physiology.org/career/teaching-learning-resources/covid-19-resources?SSO=Y We have moved much of our operation to virtual, allowing members to participate in a variety of activities during the pandemic—ranging from scientific meetings and webinars to career development programs and routine operational meetings such as sectional committees, working groups, and task forces. Through the Women in Physiology committee, we introduced a “dependent care” grant program to provide financial support to those who need help while they attend virtual events online. We have an ongoing survey of our members asking how the pandemic has affected their research and educational activities. It has not yet been completed and analyzed.
Australian Physiological Society	We have transitioned to offering online meetings for student and early career members and for physiology educators to present their research. We increased the monetary value of our PhD grant scheme to assist some of our best student researchers to conduct their research in the COVID-19 environment.
Bangladesh Society of Physiologists	The members of the Society are putting hard efforts to continue the academic activity and keep contributions in overcoming the deadly situation of COVID-19. The educationists took initiative to overcome the obstacles and cope with the stalemate situation by applying principles of internet communication network. Digital Bangladesh has used the digital method to improve the condition and maintain the communication. The digital platform has been used to run the undergraduate Physiology education system. Animal experiments are running without much hazard, but it is very difficult to enroll patients for study. Physiology postgrad students are involved in serving humanity. Along with their clinical colleagues they are playing an active role in COVID-19 patient management.
Bulgarian Society for Physiological Sciences	Bulgarian physiologists participate in research projects concerning the COVID-19 pandemic such as “Agonists of Angiotensin (1-7)/Mas receptors and mesenchymal stem cells—innovative strategies for the treatment of COVID-19 in an experimental model of pulmonary fibrosis in vivo” and “Development of therapeutics for treatment of coronavirus infection and vaccines for prevention of SARS-CoV2 infection, proven in in vivo models” An awareness campaign from Bulgarian physiologists on what a COVID-19 pandemic is and how to prevent it is going on. Special thanks to Professor Radostina Alexandrova, a member of the Society, for her devoted and frequent interviews on TV and radio stations about the COVID-19 pandemic and how to curb it.
Chilean Society of Physiological Sciences	We encourage ourselves to run the annual meeting anyway in a virtual mode. This is something that helped our members to show their data. The Society asked for contributions to all members with informative capsules (i.e., shot videos or abstracts) addressing several aspects of the pandemic. We had a good collaboration from members and released seven informative capsules in text and other several lectures regarding this aspect on the web. Several members did not have the option to be in their labs for the last 9 mo. Therefore, many students (under- and postgraduates) starting their research projects were unable to get enough data to communicate at the annual meeting of the Society. We therefore opened the possibility for them to present at the meeting under the concept of “hypothesis.” This was a way for them to show their research ideas and future projects. Members organized several online activities; they asked for sponsorship from the Society. We helped by promoting it as much as possible on the web page and SM applications. Teaching has been transformed with the pandemic. The Society encourages its members to adjust to the new way to teach. The suggestion to the members has been short and informative lectures (10–12 min), discussion with students (10 min), time free between lectures (10–20 min), and, where possible, evaluation as a group of the raised questions or commentaries. This was applied in the recent 2020 annual meeting of the Society and was well received by attendees.
Chinese Association for Physiological Sciences	We have been trying our best to assist our members in facing the impact of COVID-19 on their teaching, to integrate more educational resources for their learning, and to create more opportunities for their research. For promoting best standards of teaching and training for our members during the pandemic threat, we have launched a series of symposia domestically and internationally, especially for undergraduate and postgraduate education in the physiological discipline. The International Symposium for Physiological Online Teaching was organized by our Society in late April as the first conference to provide a platform for our physiological education community to share possibilities for the physiological teaching process during the spread of COVID-19. A second online International Symposium was held in early July with the topic of “Innovation and exploration of physiology teaching in the post COVID-19 era” with invited speakers giving talks and having discussions about how to better deal with the impact of COVID-19 on physiological teaching. In August, we had successfully launched our 2020 Annual Conference that not only provided the latest updates to physiological researchers but also shared practical experiences about teaching and training with our members from the physiology education family. We have encouraged the Acta Physiologica Sinica to publish more research articles focused on COVID-19 since our Society is one of the prominent sponsors of this journal. As for teaching and introducing the developing history of physiology and physiologists in China, this year our Society has also set up the science column in the popular messaging app WeChat.
Chinese Physiological Society in Taipei	Even though there is some inconvenience caused by COVID-19, CPS still functions normally to maintain academic activities. The Society has launched a new International Affairs and Physiology Education Committee (IAPEC) to proactively prepare for any upcoming difficulty. The IAPEC is formed by six young investigators (mostly in their early career phase), and the committee is directed by one of the council members in CPS. The communication among IAPEC members is mostly done in e-mails and video meetings. We have interviewed our society members and asked for their opinions regarding what kind of help they need from the Society to facilitate their teaching, research, and career development during COVID-19. The one thing that cannot to be held back by COVID-19 is the education of our youngsters and knowledge in physiology which is the cornerstone that promotes medical progress.
Cuban Society of Biomedical Basic Sciences (formerly Cuban Society of Physiological Sciences)	There are many pandemic-related activities in process across the Cuban universities and research institutions. Faculty and students from the Medical School and other university institutes have used innovative technologies to develop low-cost mechanical ventilators and protective equipment for health care workers. Multi-center clinical trials in which the medical school are involved include evaluation of new Cuban drugs against the new coronavirus and clinical studies to evaluate other therapeutic agents in hospitalized patients.
Finnish Physiological Society	The Society has not played a major role. The rapid digital leap and the reform of the implementation of teaching has been done locally by our members. However, many members have played a key role in reforming and implementing teaching.
French Society of Physiology	Our Society is not directly involved in teaching curriculum; however, it has lent its ears to the Physiological community in France. Our Society members have been authors of articles on COVID-19 and its impacts on human health. Our Society is actively involved in a special volume of Frontiers of Physiology, in editorial collaboration with Susan Wray, on COVID-19 in 2020.
German Physiological Society	For teaching, we have collected material and distributed it to our members through web page and newsletter. For research, no activities were launched.
Iranian Society of Physiology and Pharmacology	We prepared virtual lectures by national and international well-known researchers and virtual workshops for our members in different fields of research, encouraging the organizers to hold the workshops for free or a very low price. We have planned to hold the Society biannual congress as a webinar for the next year. The organizers will invite a lot of international speakers to present their advanced research for participants.
Israel Society of Physiology and Pharmacology	Members of our society are faculty and students in Israeli universities, they are led and instructed by the respective universities, and no one has turned to us for help. We have not been involved in changes to teaching and research of our members.
Life Science Switzerland (LS2)-Physiology	Platforms of e-Teaching and/or new teaching formats that combine self-motivating learning with provided videos, recorded slides, extracts of textbook materials, and repeated interactive courses in small groups for questioning either in presence or online are organized. Online e-meetings and e-seminars and e-thesis defenses were quickly implemented during the pandemic that allow scientific exchange among researchers.
Physiological Society of Japan	We performed, in cooperation with The Japanese Pharmacological Society, an urgent survey in terms of the influence of COVID-19 to the education in universities and measures to be taken by them. We plan to feed back the survey results to the PSJ members toward better education in the era with COVID-19. We organize education sessions at the annual meeting every year, and the participants of some sessions are certified as “Physiology Educator.” Although it is not possible to organize on-site sessions next March, we will not halt the “Physiology Educator” system but continue by identifying the online participants.
Physiological Society of Nepal	Through personal conversations and social media groups, our members have been encouraged to share ideas and build partnerships with others with similar interests, prepare manuscripts of their completed works, and conceive ideas for new researches and formulate appropriate study designs. Some members have participated in web conferences and seminars as presenters and attendees. The Society has been sharing/disseminating relevant information about events and activities taking place worldwide. Our Society has started the Journal of Physiological Society of Nepal online. Several researchers contributed manuscripts, and many were also involved as peer reviewers. Our members have been encouraged to submit their manuscripts for subsequent issues. A 1-day symposium, previously planned at a medical college (Nepalese Army Institute of Health Sciences—College of Medicine, Kathmandu), will be held in a compatible way. It will now be a limited audience symposium via webinar.
Physiological Society of Nigeria	By providing useful online links on teaching and research for its members through its social media platform. Encouraging many members to participate in some online lectures organized by the African Association of Physiological Societies where discussions focused on teaching and research during COVID-19. Regular discussion on teaching and research topics on the Society social media pages.
Physiological Society of New Zealand	Since the Society membership is dominated by the University of Auckland and Otago Physiology Departments, this support has been provided locally by PSNZ members through their respective host University Physiology Departments.
Slovak Physiological Society	The Society does not apply any special means to assist the members to deal with impact of COVID-19, because it is thoroughly done within the Institutions where they work.
Spanish Society of Physiological Sciences	Awards from the Society to best PhD Thesis (Research) and to the best project in Scientific Communication and Teaching (Teaching) have been delivered online during the last Society Meeting, even though they were planned to be awarded on-site during the Scientific Meeting; both diplomas and economic prizes have been delivered.
The Physiological Society	The Society identified what member benefits and resources were likely to be valuable to members over the period, including identifying the challenges physiologists would face such as disruptions to research and teaching and cancellation of online conferences. We surveyed the membership in June 2020 to support the ongoing evaluation of these activities and to inform future activity. We continue to gather feedback from members to ensure our membership offer remains valuable. We have provided articles and videos which provide useful advice to support the transition to online teaching. To facilitate online conversations with like-minded physiologists across the Society’s seven themes, we have held weekly webinars of an engaging physiological research topic. We convened a meeting of 650 physiologists to discuss problems and share advice on returning to laboratory research safely during the pandemic, informing the production of guidance documents for our community.
Turkish Association of Physiological Sciences	Teachings are provided online without much trouble. However, practical laboratory teaching cannot be done. Research activities relatively continue without human volunteers.

• How has COVID-19 impacted the functioning of your Society?

• How has your Society assisted its members to deal with the impact of COVID-19 on their teaching and research?

The most common problematic impact of the pandemic on the functioning of the societies was the need to cancel (n = 16) or postpone (n = 3) in-person annual physiological meetings, a main way in which members interact and exchange information on their latest research activities. Some of these societies (n = 9) were able to convert all or part of their planned meeting to a virtual format. At least four societies (American Physiological Society, Hungarian Physiological Society, Iranian Society of Physiology and Pharmacology, and the Physiological Society of Japan) have already determined that, out of an abundance of caution, their annual meeting in 2021 will be a virtual one. At least nine societies have been able to continue to communicate with and engage their members during the pandemic by conducting periodic research and educational and career development webinars/seminars/workshops with web-based platforms, which have been well attended and appreciated by their members. For example, the Physiological Society of India has organized five symposia in conjunction with several colleges/universities with a focus on various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including ways to maintain physical and mental wellness. One advantage of these virtual sessions is that they allow for easy participation of international members of societies.

At least 10 societies have continued to hold their regular council, board, and committee meetings by converting them from an in-person to an online format, which has helped to maintain much of the routine organizational operation. At least some member organizations have found that working remotely has not hampered, and perhaps even improved, efficiency by not requiring travel to a meeting. The American Physiological Society noted a bonus to going virtual because “potential budget shortfalls… have been to some extent balanced by a large reduction in travel and associated costs normally expended to assemble committee members and leaders for a variety of meetings. It is likely that reduced travel expenses will be a permanent feature of our budgeting even when we move out of pandemic mode.” On the other hand, not all societies have the technology needed to conduct their meetings with a web-based system like Zoom, and they have had to depend on phone calls or e-mails to connect with members and staff.

Societies like the American Physiological Society and The Physiological Society with robust journal programs have provided their members with extensive resources to highlight their work to discover the pathophysiological basis for COVID-19 and why the physiological changes associated with aging are so significant, for the development of more effective testing for the presence of the virus and its antibodies, and for the discovery of effective treatments and vaccines. The Physiological Society created a COVID-19 Advisory Panel that provides updates on the physiological and pathophysiological mechanisms underpinning this disease with the aim of enhancing patient outcomes.

Several societies were pleased to announce that their publications have been able to continue uninterrupted and to serve as a valuable resource for their members and scientists globally. Some societies commented that they have conducted special informational meetings or published special journal and newsletter articles to educate their members on the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and how to counteract it.

The Physiological Society of Nepal noted the severe impact that the pandemic has had on the finances of the society and its members. Sadly, with the COVID-19-required closures, not only have research laboratories been shuttered but for several months the colleges adopted a “no work no pay” policy. Even now, most colleges are providing a heavily reduced salary. Some societies have assisted the members financially. For example, The Physiological Society provided financial aid to its members who faced difficult financial situations due to COVID-19, and the Spanish Society of Physiological Sciences suspended 2020 dues payments for its members. Through the Women in Physiology Committee, the American Physiological Society introduced a “dependent care” grant program to provide financial support to those who need help while they attend virtual events online.

Many of the societies mentioned the at least temporary closure of research laboratories and the need for students to move toward remote learning and online examinations. As shown in Table 2, where possible, societies have strived to use resources to help their members deal with the impact of COVID-19 on their research and teaching. For example, the American Physiological Society, Chinese Physiological Society in Taipei, the Physiological Society of Japan, and The Physiological Society have sponsored discussion forums or surveys to assess how the pandemic has impacted research and teaching activities of their members and how the societies can help them cope. The Physiological Society also convened a meeting of 650 physiologists to discuss problems and share advice on returning to laboratory research safely during the pandemic, informing the production of guidance documents for the physiology community. The Australian Physiological Society increased the monetary value of their PhD grant program to support student researchers and are offering online meetings for students, early career members, and physiology educators to present their research.

The Chilean Society of Physiological Sciences created a meeting in which undergraduate and graduate students who could not be in their laboratories to collect data had the opportunity to receive feedback on their hypotheses. This was a way for trainees to describe their research ideas and future projects. The Chinese Association for Physiological Sciences launched a series of symposia domestically and internationally on best standards of teaching and training undergraduate and postgraduate educators in the physiological discipline. The Chinese Physiological Society in Taipei launched a new International Affairs and Physiology Education Committee to proactively prepare for any upcoming difficulty. Life Science Switzerland (LS2)-Physiology has hosted platforms of e-Teaching and/or new teaching formats that combine self-motivating learning with provided videos, recorded slides, extracts of textbook materials, and repeated interactive courses for its members.

The mental state of students, teachers, and researchers (as well as citizens of many countries) in COVID-19 times is yet another issue of concern. These unnatural conditions in which we are now living bring about depression in susceptible individuals who are homebound with limited outside access, hooked to online classes or programs, and not able to do undertake physical activities outside the home. The Physiological Society created online training courses (using videos and e-learning platforms) and guidance on providing a supportive environment for the management of stress.

Overall, the responses from the 25 physiological societies across the globe offered an optimistic outlook and a community of researchers and educators who are united on a singular focus to help prevent more victims of this devastating pandemic and to bring us back to homeostasis.