I would first like to thank the Governing Council for honouring me with this position. Our incoming Executive is a committed group of people with diverse backgrounds and diverse geographical locations.

The geographical locations are so diverse that our Executive Committee teleconferences start near midnight Australian time to get all time zones in the best circadian alignment. We expect future clock gene genetic testing of the Executive to perfect the timing of these meetings.

The World Federation was founded in 1988 to represent international sleep researchers. It has evolved into an organisation that aims to represent not only those working in basic or human experimental research but also health professionals working in clinical sleep medicine.

Despite our different career backgrounds, our membership is linked by a fascination with the world of sleep - although this link may be tenuous when we are re-writing funding applications at 1am or working our way through a long clinic list of patients.

The concept of a world sleep community was certainly highlighted by the enthusiastic participation of all sections of the sleep community at worldsleep07 held in Cairns, Australia last September. It was also my honour to co-chair this meeting with my colleague John Wheatley.

I am sure the participants agree that the meeting was a great success, not only because of the spectacular location near the Great Barrier Reef, but also because of the high standard of science being presented. Many thanks to the those that helped with this project including particularly Stephanie Blower, Naomi Rogers and David Dinges. On a sad note, the untimely death of our friend and former WFSRSMS Secretary-General, Dag Stenberg just before the conference was remembered during the meeting.

The incoming World Federation Executive intends to build on the Cairns experience and continue to expand the profi le of the Federation as we look forward to the next quadrennial meeting in 2011 in Kyoto, Japan. I would warn our capable Vice President Masako Okawa that this date will draw close very quickly!

Many people ask “what are the roles, activities and future of the World Federation?”. Firstly, sleep research and sleep medicine are no different to other areas of human endeavour - it is a global effort and almost all scientific and clinical disciplines have a global organisation to provide leadership for its members in individual countries and different continents.

In the sleep world, we are fortunate to have a number of very active societies both at the national level and continental level. These have all grown from very small groups to what are often very quite powerful organisations, with memberships into the thousands.

The World Federation does not seek to take on any of the tasks already being performed by these organisations - but rather to coordinate activities between Federation members and develop new global strategies in sleep research and the care of patients with sleep disorders.

The incoming Executive sees its mission as firstly clarifying the structure of the existing World Federation to allow it to involve potential new society members; to foster sleep research and clinical sleep medicine exchange between countries through training schemes and coordinated information; to ensure that both sleep research and sleep medicine has appropriate global profile; and finally to ensure that the science of sleep is made more prominent by world congresses or other activities that bring together the world’s leading and promising scientists.

At present, the World Federation has limited resources. One of the other roles of the incoming Executive is to provide financial stability for the World Federation and to enable it to engage in programs to benefit all in our area of work. To achieve this we will engage with our member organisations for specific support, and also seek funds from industry and other sources that will provide complementary assistance. However, in the end, a lot of the work that we do will be like most professional scientific organisations - very dependant on the free labour and enthusiasm of our membership.

On that note, I would certainly welcome any feedback, ideas and constructive criticism to my email address at rrg@med.usyd.edu.au. Members do not need to be formal or shy about communicating - I am Australian and therefore generally open, friendly and without social graces. I look forward to hearing from you personally at the upcoming APSS and ESRS meetings.