Meet the new Section Office chair Prof. Thomas Knoll
At EAU24, we bade goodbye to Prof. Jens Rassweiler (AT), who bowed out as chair of the EAU Section Office after two four-year terms. His successor, Prof. Thomas Knoll (DE) is the new Section Office chair at the European Association of Urology. He has spent the months since his appointment overseeing a series of reforms within the sections, and, in his own words, still learning a lot about the internal structures of the EAU.
Prof. Knoll is an Assoc. Prof. of Urology at Mannheim University Hospital Medical School, part of the University of Heidelberg. He also serves as Vice Medical Director at Sindelfingen-Böblingen Medical Center, University of Tübingen, Germany. Prof. Knoll has been associated with the EAU since 2000, having served, among others, as Vice-Chair in both the Guideline Group on Urolithiasis and for the EAU’s Urolithiasis Section. He sits on the editorial boards of various scientific journals, is an Ex-Officio member of the European School of Urology and serves as a consultant to the Scientific Congress Office.
Big shoes
Reflecting on these first few months, Prof. Knoll outlines some first steps already undertaken and priorities in the coming months:
“Succeeding Prof. Rassweiler has left me with big shoes to fill! These first months since EAU24 have been exciting and fun. I learned a lot, and am still learning about the Section Office, as well as the structures within the EAU. I’ve been involved with the EAU for more than a decade but with this new step there are of course still a lot more insights to be gained.”
“This past June we already had a really good first Section Office Board meeting in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. I found it very productive and the top priority was to define aims and goals. That was time-consuming but worth the effort. I also had Zoom calls with all of the section chairs individually, which was also quite useful.”
In recent months, several new chairs were installed for individual sections: Prof. Carlo Bettocchi of Foggia (Andrology), Prof. Enrico Finazzi Agrò of Rome (Functional), Dr. Mireia Musuera Felip of Barcelona (Transplantation), Prof. Carmen Jeronimo of Porto (Research) and Prof. Alessandro Volpe of Novara (Oncology).
Most notably, the sections of Uro-Technology and Urolithiasis (formerly ESUT and EULIS) have been fused into a single new Section of Endourology under Prof. Olivier Traxer (Paris, FR).
“The combining of those sections under Prof. Traxer was a major step and probably most visible from the outside,” says Prof. Knoll. “The first important steps were forming a new board for that section, merging the two while trying to retain as many experts as possible. Olivier will soon have his first board meeting and I will be joining as well.”
“He’s already working very hard, trying to establish the first scientific meeting of the new section, a successor to UROtech but focused especially on endourology. We are aiming to have a section and meeting with global relevance and visibility. We hope to share the first details soon.”
“The new section will also be working closely with the European School of Urology to set up a series of masterclasses, and together with the Scholarship Office we are working to offer a new endourology fellowship.”
“Another change that people will notice is that we are largely getting rid of abbreviations for the sections, we have long thought that they were too confusing. Some section names like ERUS are also a brand for its annual scientific meeting so we have to be careful to not get rid of established successful names. We will be using new logos that mention the subspecialty, like ‘EAU Imaging’ or ‘EAU Transplantation’ for branding. We are working on visibility, marketing, and internet presence but for some time there will certainly be an overlap with the old and new.”
Goals
As for the goals discussed at the first Section Office meeting under Prof. Knoll, a large part of that has to do with the bylaws and the official role of the sections within the EAU.
“We will be updating the bylaws to clearly state fixed terms for members of the section, but also better defining what is expected of specific section members. We need board members who have clear responsibilities, so (for example) being an expert in robotics alone is not enough to be in a board. You need a clear task or responsibility and present a report of your activities so that we can measure what you did.”
“The composition of a section is now clearly defined: we want boards of 10 people, working with four-year terms once renewable. Existing associate members are being updated: we are contacting them all to gauge their interest in remaining or else removed.”
“There is no given number of associate members, that depends on a section’s activities. The idea is for every board member to lead a working group, which may consist of a further 5, 10, 20 associates as long as they are actively involved. Some sections had affiliate members without a clear definition of what an affiliate is, it was almost like being on a mailing list, we will not be continuing with that.”
"Before I was nominated, I know there was even some discussion if we still need the sections within the EAU. I’m convinced the sections are the heart of the EAU! They contain the expertise, leadership and innovation, it’s clear that the sections have a major role to play in many EAU initiatives including scholarships, the ESU, the Policy Office, the Young Urologists Office, mentoring programmes and so on.”
Historically, there was always some uncertainty of the division of responsibilities between the Sections Office and the Educational Office, for instance in the responsibilities for organised training. “My view is, it’s all the EAU,” says Prof. Knoll. “It’s not the school or the section, it’s all EAU.”
Further topics currently under discussion within the Section Office are the format and frequency of meetings, something constantly being reevaluated. Some smaller sections who attract fewer visitors or sponsorship might fare better as part of a larger meeting, or combined with other sections.
“There is currently a lot going on, perhaps a bit more than I expected in these first five months! I would encourage any readers: if you are a leader in your field, have some expertise to offer, and you are interested in joining or contributing to a section, you are certainly warmly invited to approach the relevant section chair with a cv, and a letter of interest to express your enthusiasm. We are always looking for talented people who want to put the work in.”