Italian Society of Pharmacology

The Italian Society of Pharmacology was founded in 1939. In 1996 it was recognised as a non-profit scientific association by the Ministry of the University, Scientific and Technological Research. It is a member of IUPHAR and EPHAR (Federation of the European Pharmacological Societies. The present enrolment of SIF comprises of 1169 ordinary members, 12 honorary members and 20 supporting members.

The Society has a lasting office in Milan and is overseen by a President, a President choose and a Steering Committee of 8 individuals. The Society incorporates a Section of Clinical Pharmacology which is overseen by a Co-ordinator and a Steering Committee answering to the President. The Society holds a national meeting at regular intervals. In the option year there is a Joint Meeting with a European Society either in Italy or abroad. This convention started in Florence on 1968 with the principal joint meeting with the BPS.

Since ten years, the Society organises in Siena a yearly Seminar for PhD students in pharmacology and related disciplines with the participation of their tutors. The publications of the Society are Pharmacological Research, an international journal printed by Elsevier, a quarterly newsletter called “Quaderni della SIF”, in Italian, reporting the activity of the Society and its members, political and academical news which may be of interest to them, official position papers and documents prepared by the Society on issues concerning pharmacological problems of interest for the general public.

SIF is an active and lively society which has gradually changed from a typical learned society devoted mostly to the exchange of scientific information among its members to a kind of professional society which, without severing the scientific roots which represent its “raison d’être”, aims to promote pharmacology in Italy by fostering pharmacological education within the University, the National Health System and the general public, by supporting young pharmacologists with travel fellowships and grants and helping them to find jobs, and by collaborating with public authorities and private organisations in disseminating expert opinions on drug efficacy and side effects.