Our response

Message from our CEO, Rachel Lambert-Forsyth

We have put a proactive plan in place to protect and reduce risk to our members and staff, while continuing our services during the COVID-19 outbreak. 

In line with UK Government guidance, our offices at Angel Gate in London are closed with all meetings and committees now being run virtually, including Council.

All our staff are working from home with phone call and emails answered as normal; with the plans and facilities we have in place we anticipate that you should not notice any significant difference in our service. 

We are continuing to monitor the national situation and are making decisions in good time as to whether any scientific meetings should go ahead, be postponed or cancelled, or be held virtually...continue reading

Our response and action

Journals - free access to COVID-19 papers
Our digital community
Working with partners
Meetings and events

Journals - free access to COVID-19 papers

All published articles relevant for COVID-19 in the BJP and the BJCP have been, or will be, made free to access immediately. (PR&P is entirely open access.) The Society's journals accept manuscripts that have already been posted as a preprint, and all authors submitting to the BJP or the BJCP may post their manuscript as a preprint in Authorea as part of the submission process. 

Our digital community

We’re pleased to be able to support our members in coming together digitally, in a time when other activities may be more difficult. Launching in May 2020, all members will have access to the online BPS Community - where our members can come together to explore ideas, build supportive relationships, and share research. Read more and find out how to join now. 

Working with partners

We have been working hard to understand how best we can support our membership and the wider pharmacological community at this time. We are therefore working with partners in the sector, including the Association of the British Pharmaceutical IndustryNICEHRA, medical Royal Colleges and IUPHAR to ensure that we understand the developing landscape and the role that the Society and our members can play. 

We are also responding to requests from the Science Media Centre to help ensure accurate representation of pharmacology, medicines and science in the media, and would like to thank them for their efforts in helping bring expert views to the fore. If you would like to join the conversation, please get in touch through the BPS community forum

We’ll be sharing any ways you can support the activities of the Society and our partners in the ‘How you can help’ area of our website. 

Meetings and events

The wellbeing of attendees at our meetings and events is of the utmost importance. We have been monitoring developments and advice from the UK Government and World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19.  Latest news

On Friday 13 March we announced that we cancelled our Cell Signalling 2020 meeting, due to be held in April.  
On Tuesday 24 March we announced that we cancelled Current Trends in Drug Discovery, which was due to take place in June 2020. Speakers, abstract authors and delegates have all been informed by email.  

  • BPS President’s Lecture  Our President's Lecture, due to be delivered by Dr Robert Langer, has been postponed and will hopefully be rescheduled for autumn 2020. 
  • Training workshops Our training workshops  in Pharmacogenomics in Drug Development, Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics and Clinical Toxicology, have all been postponed until 2021. 
  • Pharmacology 2020  We currently intend to proceed with our flagship meeting, taking place on the 13-15th December in Liverpool, however we will continue to undertake risk assessments and will keep you updated if anything changes.