A brief history of the vEM community initiative

Lucy Collinson, Gerard Kleywegt, Kedar Narayan, Ardan Patwardhan and Paul Verkade
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In October 2019, members of the volume EM community gathered at the Wellcome Trust in London for a Town Hall meeting. The meeting was driven by the rapid rise and diversification of vEM technologies for imaging cells and tissues, and gathered experts from academia, industry and UK funding bodies to discuss the need for vEM infrastructure organisation, coordination and investment in the UK to support discovery and clinical research in the life sciences. That first meeting had 59 attendees from five countries (UK, US, Germany, The Netherlands and Finland), with expertise in cell biology, cancer research, clinical research, neurosciences, sample preparation, imaging, data handling, data analysis, computational science, machine learning, public image archiving, citizen science, hardware and software design and prototyping, and research funding.

The meeting inspired the community to produce a vision for a UK infrastructure for vEM capable of meeting the needs of the discovery and clinical research communities, which was shared and discussed with UKRI and the Wellcome Trust  in March 2020. Following a survey this was further developed into a more detailed road map, which was shared with the UK funders in June 2020.

​In October 2020, a second Town Hall meeting was held, this time virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic. This meeting gave an overview of the current state of the art in vEM techniques and technology, reviewed progress in infrastructure and community building since the first Town Hall meeting, and further developed these themes in a number of breakout discussion sessions. The meeting had 56 attendees from five countries (UK, US, Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium), again with broad expertise and representing academia, industry and science funders. ​

Coinciding with the UK-focused Town Hall, a structured and moderated “microlab” was held in Maryland, US at the Frederick National Laboratory. Fifty-five domain experts invited from nine countries (US, UK, Germany, France, Finland, Australia, Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary) were tasked with identifying and ranking the biggest obstacles in the vEM field, as well as targeted “wish lists”. Using gamified exercises, the group produced a shortlist of areas where targeted action could have outsized impacts with minimal wasted effort - valuable and orthogonal insights in this fast expanding field with transformational potential.  
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The 2020 meetings became the starting point for a massive community-building and engagement effort, nucleating the creation of six vEM working groups, and attracting more than 55 volunteers from 10 countries (UK, US, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Finland, Portugal, Australia, Norway, Iceland). By mid-2021, there had been 17 individual working group meetings and two all-working group meetings, with a dozen spreadsheets created and more than 70 actions underway. The vEM community has built this website, a Discourse forum, a mailing list, social media accounts, training resources, protocols, surveys, a logo competition, case studies, publications, seminars and conferences. The community gathered for a third Town Hall meeting in October 2021 to review progress and plan the next wave of activity. Almost 250 scientists registered for this meeting, including many from outside the UK, further expanding the international aspirations of the community initiative.

​We encourage you to join our effort to grow and connect with the international vEM community and drive the next generation of vEM innovation and imaging science!