Your ARCS, working for you!

As we mentioned in our Treasurer’s report at the AGM in January 2025, ARCS have some surplus funds that we wanted to spend on our members. We anticipated a £35,000 spend on a complete overhaul of the ARCS website – and are pleased to say development is well underway and our fresh website will be fully launched at the AGM during the Fertility 2026 conference. This is something we hope will benefit all members, and better represent all the work we do as an Association.

This year, we were the individual sponsor of the Progress Educational Trust (PET) online event to celebrate Bob Edwards’ 100th birthday, which was a great success. Jane Blower, ARCS President was one of the speakers at the event and you can read her review here.

In addition, we have partnered with The Royal Society of Biology to support their pilot Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Culture Grant over the next two years. The first round of applications and judging has taken place, and we look forward to sharing what projects we will be supporting as part of this collaboration.

We are aware of how difficult it is for some members to attend conferences and educational days, and are committed to helping any ARCS member get financial help with travel and accommodation to our meetings. Our travel grants, which we have now increased from £500 to £1,000 each, are available to apply for.

Overall, our priority this year has been to continue supporting free events for our members, including;

• Breaking Bad News
• STP revision event
• Further education day
• ARCS365 webinars
• CPD support event
• Mentor training

As well as these events, we hosted another very successful Symposium in September, which this year was heavily subsidised by ARCS. The Symposium was fully booked, and feedback has been really positive – you can read one delegate and presenter’s review here.

Next year, we are planning a free members event for HFEA Quality Managers (charge for non-members) and we are in early discussions regarding a HFEA Person Responsible day later in the year.

We recently sent out a request for your ideas on how you would like further ARCS funds to be spent. The most common suggestion was free courses, something which we have been able to achieve this year and hope to increase in the coming years. We are always happy to receive any more specific ideas or suggestions you may have for training events, so please email arcs@arcscientists.org if you have any!

Stephanie Brooks, ARCS Treasurer