President’s Blog

ETHICS, #METOO AND THE PROVERBIAL ICEBERG
Maria A. Oquendo, M.D., Ph.D.
March 9, 2020

The #MeToo movement has had a salubrious effect on our culture writ large.  The days of suffering in silence because of overt bullying and abuse seem to be on the wane.  More and more, organizations and the country as a whole have been standing up to unethical behavior and doing something about it. While we acknowledge progress, we also know that there is more work to be done.

You may be asking yourself: “What’s ACNP’s stance on members’ unethical behavior?  Do they care about scientific misconduct?  Sexual harassment?  Abusive treatment of students and postdocs?  Financial improprieties?”  I would say those are mighty good questions, especially if you are a Twitter savvy scientist!  ACNP has a very rigorous and fair approach to such issues and a Council that engages in careful and thoughtful deliberation.  ACNP’s goal is to ensure that the tone and experience of the Annual Meeting is one that is professional and safe.  It seeks to have a membership that meets the highest bar in terms of ethical behavior.  This is what we seek, it is not a statement of where we are, just yet.

I thought it would be useful to outline the ACNP’s current procedures for managing allegations of unethical behavior.  It’s pretty straightforward, but thorough. First, ACNP has a robust Ethics Committee that examines allegations of conduct violating Principles of Scientific Conduct (approved February 2000, amended April 2010) and/or Conflict of Interest Policy.   Generally, evidence is based on the fact that the member is disciplined, expelled, convicted or adjudged liable in a final decision or judgment of a university, medical school, funding entity, employer, local, state, federal or national professional or regulatory body, or a judicial or disciplinary body. Operationally, complaints are initially evaluated by the President, Ethics Committee Chair and Executive Director. Together, they determine whether there are grounds for discipline and if so, forward it to the Ethics Committee.  If the Ethics Committee deems the complaint to be valid, Council notifies the respondent of a hearing, where the respondent and his/her legal counsel have the opportunity to be heard.  During the hearing, the Ethics Committee’s evaluation is also reviewed, and a final determination is made.

ACNP strives to be fair to all of its members, including those who suffer mistreatment and those accused of unethical behavior. Of course, by necessity, that takes time. While ACNP is proud of the policies in place, the College recognizes the importance of ongoing improvements, including additional protections for those that are underrepresented or victimized. We recognize that overt abuse is the tip of the iceberg and that microaggressions, whether intentional or accidental, are cumulatively exhausting and not addressed by current ACNP policies. Further, current policies do not address protections during investigations which are paramount to promoting a safe and inclusive environment.

I am proud of the systematic, meticulous procedures that have been in place at ACNP for years, yet I recognize that we can and need to do more. With this in mind, ACNP will continue to work to improve our culture and support the continued diversification of science. We have established an email account specifically for collection of suggestions to promote a more inclusive environment and chip away at the proverbial iceberg. I invite you to send me your recommendations for ways in which we can institute positive change in our College at diversity@acnp.org.

Diversity drives better science and leads to improved human health. ACNP is committed to building a culture of inclusion and support, with the goal of promoting the best science. In the end, our scientific mission is best served by a fair, thoughtful process and an inclusive, supportive culture. While we aren’t there yet, together, we can get there.

President’s Letter
Maria A. Oquendo, M.D., Ph.D.

Dear Members of the College,

It is a privilege and an honor to serve as your President for 2020.  Having served the College in various roles (Membership Committee, Program Committee, Council), the opportunity to contribute in a different capacity is exciting.  ACNP is my scientific home and the annual meeting is the professional bright spot of my year.

As I mentioned in the Business Meeting last December, I have proposed four initiatives for 2020.

The first initiative is to develop strategies for recruitment of the next generation of outstanding scientists conducting cutting edge research with continued focus on diversity defined in the broadest sense.   Most of our membership growth has depended on having individuals self-select or be identified and encouraged by their mentors to apply.  There exist opportunities for more proactive outreach to potential members that can diversify the scientific portfolio and sociodemographic characteristics of the College.  This initiative will necessarily rely on the wisdom of the Membership Committee who evaluates and selects applicants for membership and of the Education and Training Committee, which selects our travel awardees with special attention to diversity and is responsible for fostering their development and ultimately their membership in the College.

Leveraging our assets to promote the mission of the College is a second initiative.  Thanks to the College’s portfolio’s excellent performance under the guidance of our distinguished Treasurer, supported by the Audit/Finance Committee, we are in a position to invest in efforts that support the mission of the College.  Thus, I will work with the Education and Training Committee and with the collaboration of our sister societies, to develop opportunities to further education in neuropsychopharmacology.

My third initiative is informed by my experience as President of the American Psychiatric Association.  In that position, I learned first-hand about the capacity that professional and scientific societies have to influence policy.  They can do so by organizing congressional briefings in which scientists and stakeholders talk about research findings with immediate public health impact; by organizing meetings between scientists and members of the Senate and Congress to discuss the need for ongoing research funding; and by showing that this is a bipartisan issue.  This is a job that our colleagues at NIH and other federal funding agencies cannot do.  We know that the nation’s health depends on research dollars to support fundamental and clinical science.  By working with the Liaison Committee to strengthen our partnerships with societies with similar missions, we can increase our reach to policy makers and work to ensure protection/expansion of research funding and support for animal research.  By supporting advocacy for the outstanding science that we discuss at our meetings and read about in our journal, this initiative has the potential to will benefit the College and its members.

A fourth initiative will support both the education and the research mission of the College.  While we want to improve educational opportunities for budding basic, translational and clinical neuroscientists, it is essential to improve the pipeline.  A key strategy for this is to ensure that graduate and medical schools are exposing their students to the excitement of neuroscience research relevant to psychiatric and addictive disorders, so that they choose it as a focus for their career.  Thus, I will work with the Education and Training Committee to engage the AAMC and other organizations to expand the time spent in SOM/Neuroscience curricula on psychiatric and substance use disorders.

Of course, the success for any ACNP President relies heavily on the outstanding work and support that Parthenon Management Group provides in ensuring that we keep our eye on the ball as we work towards fulfilling Presidential initiatives, while continuing to ensure the highest quality programming and functioning of ACNP.  Thank you to Sarah Timm and her outstanding team!

I owe a debt of gratitude for the vision and dedication of the immediate past Presidents, Marina Wolf and Steve Hyman, as well as that of our illustrious Council. Together, they have set the stage for what I hope will be another fabulous year for ACNP.

I look forward to hearing from you and to a productive year!

Sincerely,

Maria A. Oquendo, M.D., Ph.D.

What does Council do anyway?
Marina E. Wolf, Ph.D.
December 2, 2019

When I was deciding whether to run for President, I talked to members of various ages about how they perceived the ACNP leadership. Especially among the younger members, I detected wariness about the Council – a sense that the goal was protecting the status quo rather than making way for the new. And of course, those rumors about satanic rituals.

In part as a reaction to this, I have posted several blogs during my Presidency to explain specific issues facing the College and how the ACNP leadership is responding (examples are mentioned below). On my way out, I’d like to give a broader perspective on Council’s purpose and our accomplishments in 2019.

Council is a remarkable organism. Except for certain key components – Drs. Kupfer and Coyle (long-standing Treasurer and Secretary, respectively) and Sarah Timm (Executive Director) – the membership turns over rapidly (2 out of 6 elected Council members are replaced every year).  One consequence is that some issues are discussed over and over again, as new members are brought up to speed. This sounds like a negative, but it is not. Rather, this fosters ongoing re-examination of vital issues with continuous injection of new viewpoints. Stability is achieved because each group, whatever its exact composition, has a genuine desire to do what is best for the College and its members, a willingness to undertake respectful but honest debate, and extensive experience with how organizations such as ACNP operate most effectively. Contrary to the perception I mentioned above, the bias is nearly always towards policies that bring the ACNP more in line with the needs of younger scientists and with changing scientific and societal landscapes.

Council meets twice each year in person – at the annual meeting and in the summer – and there are biweekly calls of its Executive Committee. All Council members are welcome to join these calls. Many of us also participate in a large number of other calls related to activities of specific committees or task forces. Lots of discussion – so far, no satanic rituals that I am aware of.

So what did we do this year?

A big item was updating the Strategic Plan – this was largely the work of a Strategic Planning task force that consisted of Council and non-Council members. The new plan was recently posted to the website. Check it out – it contains many forward-looking ideas.

Preparing our College and Neuropsychopharmacology for the implementation of Plan S has also consumed a great deal of time on the part of Council and the Plan S Task Force. Briefly, Plan S is an initiative for open access publishing launched in September 2018 by European funding organizations. Its goal is to implement policy to ensure that all scientific publications resulting from public grants will be published in open access journals or platforms by 2021. How Plan S is ultimately implemented will profoundly affect how we publish and access the literature. Our efforts to prepare for Plan S are ongoing. The issues surrounding Plan S are so complex and change so rapidly that I did not even attempt a blog post.

The enhancement of diversity and inclusivity within our College and at our annual meeting remains a vital goal. Please see my diversity blog for a detailed update on steps taken by Council and the Minority Task Force towards this goal. We have made progress but there is a long way to go.

Then there was the issue of the name change, laid out in gory detail in my name-change blog. The question of whether the original name matched our current identity has been simmering for over a decade. I am proud that this Council decided to resolve the debate through a thoughtful and transparent process, and succeeded. As you know, the decision was made to retain our original name.

This year, as in other years, Council, the Ethics Committee, and our legal counsel dealt with complaints against members alleged to have violated our Code of Conduct. Although such investigations are not made public, there is an established procedure that is triggered by each complaint. We continue to work on strategies to reduce violations. This is why you are bombarded with reminders about the Code of Conduct in emails leading up to the meeting and during the meeting. One strategy new for 2019 was the creation of an Annual Ethics Attestation accompanying the dues payment process.  This requires members to attest they will abide by the ACNP Principles of Scientific Conduct, the Conflict of Interest Policy statement, and Code of Conduct.   It also asks them to attest that they have not been convicted of a felony or had any disciplinary action taken by their employing institution or any granting agency. Additional strategies to improve compliance with the Code are presently being considered.

Science and organizations like the ACNP are not insulated from politics. On nearly every Council call, we discuss support of advocacy efforts, for example, strategies proposed by the American Brain Coalition to encourage development of new drugs for CNS disorders. We also discuss policy or proposed legislation affecting our members. If warranted, we send letters to appropriate government officials, often in partnership with like-minded organizations.  For example, we supported the Medical Marijuana Research Act of 2019 which amends the Controlled Substances Act so as to lessen the regulatory burden and facilitate research on marijuana and its constituent compounds by qualified scientists, and we opposed an EPA directive calling for a drastic reduction in the use of animal models and elimination of their use by 2035.

Efforts continue to update the composition and policies of the College to match the changing scientific landscape. For example, the Council along with the Liaison and Membership Committees has developed strategies to increase participation by scientists from industry, biotech and technology companies, and we recently approved a new system with tiered levels of corporate sponsorship. With support of Council, the Program Committee has solicited proposals designed to incorporate cutting-edge scientific fields and approaches into the annual meeting. The Latin American Task Force continues to promote involvement of Latin American scientists in the ACNP, as well as initiatives to promote growth of related research and conferences in Latin American countries.  All of these initiatives bring up the question of how we should manage growth of the ACNP. This thorny issue was discussed in an earlier blog (Why don’t we go back to Hawaii?).

Council also develops charges for all ACNP committees and task forces and reviews reports by these groups annually. One significant change made this year was updating the Audit Committee, the scope of which was limited to evaluating the annual audit, to an Audit/Finance Committee with broader responsibilities for overseeing our expenditures and investments.

Finally, Council responds to initiatives proposed by our members. For example, in response to concerns raised by members of the Program Committee, effective in 2021 the summer Program Committee meeting will be changed to an e-meeting to reduce our carbon footprint.  I am proud of the members who initiated this proposal and proud of the Council for instantly embracing it. Not bad for a bunch of dinosaurs.

This is a partial list, but I hope it gives you a sense of what the Council does and why it exists. I have learned a tremendous amount through my service on Council. It is an experience I would recommend to all of you. Although I shed the tiara next month, I will stay on Council for 2 more years (this is the policy for past-presidents). I look forward to continuing to work with an outstanding group of colleagues to serve the ACNP.

See you in Orlando!

Best wishes,

Marina Wolf
ACNP President

Why don’t we go back to Hawaii?
Marina E. Wolf, Ph.D.
October 28, 2019

It is the eternal lament. Many of us have very happy memories of meetings on the Big Island or Maui (1978, 1985, 1989, 1993, 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2011). Science is our constant, but these meetings felt special – our kids swam with dolphins and people renewed wedding vows.  Why, then, do we presently seem to be oscillating between FL and AZ?

The answer is that we need a hotel that provides enough rooms for most of us and offers a conference center that can handle our talks and poster sessions. If we add a requirement for warmish weather during the meeting, we have outgrown all but a small number of hotels. In Hawaii, the only option would be a mega-hotel on the Waikiki Strip in Honolulu. This would not be the Hawaii we remember fondly. Rather, we would be spending a great deal of money and flying a long way to be in a crowded, touristy and urban locale. Revisiting Mexico is not an option. It is very challenging for some attendees to travel outside the US, so current ACNP policy is to restrict our meetings to US territories. Puerto Rico? See second-to-last paragraph of this blog.

Of course, our options would broaden if we held scientific sessions in a convention center, rather than using a hotel with its own conference center. But this might come at a cost. Would sessions and mentoring events be well attended if people had to bus from hotels to the conference venue? Would you run into the senior scientist or potential collaborator who you would love to meet if the poster session took place in an enormous convention center?  Would conversations migrate from the convention center to restaurants or informal gathering places with the same ease we now enjoy? Efficiency also matters. Say what you will about the Diplomat, but it is nice to be able to go from your room to the conference center simply by walking down a long hallway, and later go from the conference center to the beach in less than 5 min. The hotels we have utilized in the Phoenix area offer many of the same benefits. In sum, face-to-face conversations and their unexpected turns can make all the difference in developing an innovative new project or cementing a mentoring relationship, and the odds of such interactions increase when we are all living and working in the same space.

The existing strategic plan of the ACNP is to limit growth so that we can avoid the convention center scenario and maintain an intimate and collegial atmosphere at the meeting. As an aside, it is important to keep in mind that this is not the most important reason for our stringent membership selection process. First and foremost, we must maintain our stature as an organization of world-class scientists and clinicians because this sets us apart, gives us leverage when we speak on research, educational or policy matters, and attracts the next generation of top scientists to our ranks. In addition, members must be willing to enthusiastically serve the College, not just list it on their CV.  This is one reason the Membership Committee looks favorably on applicants who have previously participated in one or more annual meetings. Presumably, such applicants understand the commitment they are making.

Let it not be said, however, that there is no romance left in the souls of the Council members and the Parthenon staff. As you may have noticed, the 2021 meeting will take place in San Juan. If you are of a certain age, this evokes even fonder memories than Hawaii! The upcoming meeting will not, however, be a rerun of those golden days when nearly everyone stayed at the Caribe Hilton – where the lobby flowed into the open-air bar and then the beach – and crammed themselves like sardines into the poster venue in their parking garage. We no longer fit, not by any stretch of the imagination. Instead, we will try a hybrid model, in which we stay at the Caribe and surrounding hotels but hold scientific sessions in the newly remodeled San Juan convention center. This convention center is very small and reasonably close to the hotels, qualities that we hope will mitigate the concerns about large convention centers that I listed above, especially when combined with the beauty and fun of San Juan. However, there are other potential downsides, including costlier and longer flights, heavy traffic on the route from hotels to the convention center, and the risk of another catastrophic storm (San Juan suffered substantial damage during Hurricane Maria in 2017).

As you attend the next few meetings, please give some thought to the relative value you place on good weather, a resort location, a venue that maximizes our interactions by offering everything under one roof, and ease of access from all parts of the country. Going forward, we are trying to identify new hotels on the US mainland that offer most of the above at a reasonable cost – hence the “Orlando experiment”! I’m looking forward to seeing all of you there.

Marina Wolf, ACNP President

The College’s Commitment to Diversity
Marina E. Wolf, Ph.D.

In this blog, I hope to convince you that the ACNP is committed to further enhancing diversity and inclusivity within our College and at our Annual Meeting. Not only is this the right thing to do – it is also one of the best things we can do for the future of the College, based on numerous studies showing that diversity in the workplace boosts important outcome measures. However, many of the simple and obvious steps to increase diversity have already been taken by the ACNP leadership, with limited success, leaving us in more challenging territory. An important part of our ongoing Strategic Planning process is to identify additional ways to improve the recruitment of outstanding scientists from URM groups and to foster a climate of inclusion for scientists of all backgrounds at the Annual Meeting.

The blog is organized into four sections: a summary of the numbers, steps we are taking to enhance the pipeline of URM scientists potentially interested in the ACNP, improvements to the Annual Meeting to increase inclusivity and make it more useful and welcoming for URM scientists, and additional issues and ideas to consider as we work to further advance these goals. If you only read one section, please read the last section (“We need to do more”) and send your ideas to acnp@acnp.org.

I’m drawing in part on resources provided by the URM Task Force and Natalie Zahr. I thank them for their work.

Numbers. For decades after the founding of ACNP, the membership included only a handful of scientists from URM groups.  The earliest mention of the need to recruit URM scientists is the Strategic Plan developed in 2004. As of 2018, scientists from URM groups represented 5% of the total membership, up from 3% in 2011. Not surprisingly, change has been most rapid at the Associate Member level (7% in 2014 and 11% in 2018), while representation has grown more slowly for Full, Fellow and Emeritus members (due to the larger denominator). It is sobering to consider the situation in real numbers rather than percentages. For example, considering the ACNP as a whole, only 66 out of 1237 members are scientists from a URM group. In terms of meeting attendance, this translated into just 17 URM attendees at the 2014 meeting and 23 in 2018. We are trying to obtain comparable statistics for the Society for Neuroscience and for categories of NIH Awards to put this into context and to help us set targets for URM membership levels in the future, but I think we can all agree that these numbers are disappointing in any context.

Pipeline. An inadequate pipeline is widely recognized as contributing to low representation of people from URM groups in the STEMM fields. Expanding this pipeline has been a focus of ACNP efforts and we are having some success. I am proud to report that, of the 2019 Travel Award Class, 22% are URM scientists. In addition, to encourage continued advancement of past URM Travel Awardees in the College and more generally in the field of neuropsychopharmacology, ACNP offers two years of additional support following the initial award year, contingent on brief documentation of continued progress in the field which is reviewed by the Education & Training Committee. Over the past six years, an average of 82% of the URM past Travel Awardees have taken advantage of this opportunity, which includes waiver of registration, hotel accommodations, airfare, and coverage of additional expenses including childcare.  In addition to trying to keep URM scientists in the pipeline, the Diversity Invitation Bank was developed to attract URM scientists to our Annual Meeting by allowing members to offer one invitation to a URM scientist in addition to their usual invitation. The Diversity Invitation Bank was recently updated by Council to include not only African American, Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander, and scientists with a disability, but also LGBTQ+ scientists. Please note that this change is, at present, restricted to the Diversity Invitation Bank. A more general broadening of URM categories is discussed in the last section of this blog.  At the level of encouraging membership, Council approved a policy change in 2013 allowing members to write one additional letter of nomination if the additional nominee is a woman or a URM.

Finally, the ACNP partners with the APA to support the APA Research Colloquium for Junior Psychiatrist Investigators, which is designed to increase the pipeline of young investigators in the field while increasing the quality of training and mentoring. This prestigious program, which includes a half day training session at the ACNP Annual Meeting, includes a substantial number of URM scientists (28% in 2019). We hope that this experience puts the ACNP on the radar of these promising young investigators!

These strategies for bringing URM scientists to the Annual Meeting are proving effective at increasing the number of URM members of the ACNP.  Out of the 66 members in the College who are URMs, 39% are past Travel Awardees, 58% are past Invited Guests, and 3% were invited to the Annual Meeting from the Diversity Invitation Bank. Furthermore, from 2014-2018, the acceptance rate of URM applicants into Associate Membership paralleled the overall rate of acceptance.

At the meeting. The Travel Award Program and other initiatives discussed above bring URM scientists to the meeting and into the membership, but what do we do to make the meeting more useful and welcoming? A key development was the establishment of the Minority Task Force in 2013, which primarily consists of URM members of the College and focuses on URM recruitment and career development. The Task Force oversees two URM Annual Meeting Events, the Under-Represented Minority Women’s Networking Session (a breakfast focusing on the unique challenges and opportunities of navigating a career in academic medicine as a URM woman) and the Minority Task Force Networking Reception. In 2017, the College established the Dolores Shockley Minority Mentoring Award to an ACNP member who has been particularly successful in mentoring young scientists from underrepresented minorities in the field of neuropsychopharmacology and related disciplines to increase visibility of the contribution URMs are making to the College. Finally, the Minority Task Force and others within the ACNP are working to increase the visibility of URM related content on the ACNP website through a variety of strategies. For example, we are planning to add a URM subheading to the Annual Meeting tab to highlight URM events at the meeting, and a URM subheading in the Career tab that will highlight URM trainee events, funding and training opportunities, blogs, testimonials, and educational presentations like Ted Talks that are relevant to the goal of increasing diversity and inclusivity within the College.

We need to do more. The message to this point is that the ACNP is committed to increasing diversity and inclusion, and we have already implemented numerous policy changes to better accomplish this goal. As noted above, advancing this effort is an important part of the Strategic Planning now underway for the ACNP. I welcome your suggestions along these lines. However, while policies can be “legislated”, this is not true for some other ingredients that are important for achieving more equitable representation as well as improving inclusivity and the climate of our College and its meeting.

One issue is the potential contribution of unconscious or implicit bias, which leads us to attribute particular qualities to members of a certain group and therefore treat them differently. In the ACNP this could affect our behavior at many levels: who we choose to mentor and encourage towards participation in ACNP, how we assess the CV’s of those applying for Travel Awards or Membership, and perhaps whether we decide to stop at a particular poster or strike up a conversation while waiting in line for a drink at the poster session. Many universities and organizations have instituted training to increase recognition of our implicit bias, and the ACNP Council is discussing making such training a requirement for registration for the Annual Meeting as well as conducting mandatory training before any reviews are conducted (e.g., prior to selecting Travel Awardees, Members, or panels).  There is no doubt that making individuals aware of their unintentional involvement in perpetuating inequalities will benefit the workings of the College. However, we cannot stop there. I refer you to a very thoughtful Lancet article (1) arguing that the current focus on implicit bias – which is mainly directed at initiating change at the level of the individual – must not divert attention from broader structural inequalities that have an even more devastating effect.

Another issue is whether we go far enough with our Code of Conduct (https://acnp.org/annual-meeting/code-of-conduct/) to promote inclusivity. My sense is that we do. The Code is clear and when it is violated a series of events is triggered to investigate and, if appropriate, to sanction the perpetrator. Most members are completely unaware of this process because it is conducted in a manner consistent with protecting the privacy of those involved. Despite our “radio silence” in this regard, please be assured that nothing is swept under the rug. Thus far, none of the complaints made have been related to discrimination or harassment directed toward a member of a URM group. I hope that this reflects reality rather than unwillingness of URM scientists or other attendees to report violations of the Code.

At present, a discussion is underway within the Minority Task Force and the Council about expanding the definition of URM – for the purposes of College membership statistics and applications for Travel Awards and Membership – to include LGBTQ+ scientists, scientists with disabilities, and scientists from disadvantaged backgrounds, including those from low income families and those who are the first in their family to attend college. Similar discussions are underway at the NIH and other professional societies. One important issue is how broadening the definition of URM will affect the development of goals for recruitment of particular groups of URM scientists. To pose a hypothetical example, if all first-generation scientists are white, we could get a false sense of reaching equity with regard to groups that would remain under-represented. This is not a small issue, as setting specific and measurable goals for increasing diversity of the ACNP membership, and then devising strategies to reach those goals, is an essential part of the Strategic Planning process.

Distinct from the question of representation in the College is the issue of the climate of the Annual Meeting. At the July Council meeting, we discussed some simple strategies that will be implemented this year to make the Annual Meeting more welcoming to all scientists.

The fact remains that, even with the multiple policy changes instituted by the ACNP and outlined in this blog, we have taken decades to creep to the level of 5% URM scientists in our membership and we are still working to improve the climate of the Annual Meeting. I hope that this blog communicates the fact that our slow pace does not reflect a lack of desire to achieve change, and captures the complexity of steps on the table to accomplish change at both the individual and organizational levels. Although progress is slow in coming, it is coming.

(1) C Pritlove, C Juando-Prats, K Ala-leppilampi, JA Parsons. The good, the bad, and the ugly of implicit bias. Lancet 393 (1071), p. 502-504. Published: February 09, 2019 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32267-0

Marina Wolf, ACNP President

Name of our College and our Journal
Marina E. Wolf, Ph.D.

Dear ACNP Membership,

I’m using my first blog post to update you on the responses to February’s survey about changing the name of our College and our Journal. Approximately 31% of members responded, for a total of 24 pages of collated comments (single spaced). The majority of survey responses on “both sides of the aisle” were thoughtful and conveyed a sincere desire to make the best choice for the future of the College. Here I summarize my impressions of the most salient points. I thank Judy Ford for helpful suggestions on this document.

COLLEGE NAME CHANGE
From a total of 351 responses, 197 said Yes (Support name change), 82 said No (Do not support), and 72 were not sure or had other suggestions. The majority of comments were enthusiastically supportive of changing the name of the College, and this support came from individuals who self-identified as newer members as well as those who self-identified as older members.  Below I’ve paraphrased representative comments from those in favor and those opposed. Of course there is sampling bias inherent in these types of surveys where only a fraction of the total membership respond, which makes it important to hear from the maximal number of members when this comes to a vote (see last paragraph of this post).

Comments in favor

• When the college was formed, the frontier was indeed pharmacology. Now, the field has broadened, and we should broaden the name of our College accordingly.
• The current name may discourage participation of scientists who think their research is not related to pharmacology. Supporting this (albeit anecdotally), some stated that they had initially disregarded the College for this reason and began participating only when they learned the name was not “accurate”.
• The name change will not only attract new members but will re-energize our College, ensuring its continued relevance and making an excellent meeting even better.
• The new name more accurately captures the mission, the membership, and the scope of work presented at the meeting. It preserves the ACNP acronym but makes it stand for what we are.
• Many short comments conveyed excitement over the proposed change, describing it as long overdue, forward-looking, appropriate, and more inclusive.

Comments opposed

• “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it” appeared in many comments. Individuals expressing this opinion were skeptical about the justification provided for considering a name change, given lack of hard data showing that people really are turned off by our current name and ample data that we are very popular (e.g., meeting size continues to grow, and we have more applicants for travel fellowships and membership than we can possibly accept).
• We can find another way to attract investigators in important fields that should be better represented in the College.
• Neuropsychopharmacology is a more inclusive term than the alternative being proposed. Under this “brand”, we have been able to serve as a unique and unified voice for the interests of our diverse membership. The alternative runs more risk of misunderstanding, mainly due to excessive focus on Psychiatry at the expense of other disciplines.
• A name that honors our traditions and history does not have to be accurate in all eras.

Problems with the proposed name
The new name proposed by the Council (American College of Neuroscience and Psychiatry) was criticized not only by opponents of a name change but also by some supporters, as summarized below.

• Placing “and” between Neuroscience and Psychiatry implies a division between the two that runs completely counter to the ACNP’s long-standing goal of positioning itself at the intersection of “brain, behavior and therapeutics”.
• There is growing overlap between traditionally defined psychiatric illness and neurological illness (e.g., AD, OCD, Tourette’s, and ADHD). Specifying “Psychiatry” serves the unintended purpose of driving an apparent wedge between Psychiatry and Neurology at a time when we should be trying to bring them together. It also risks alienating other clinicians important to the ACNP who are not specified in the new name, for example, clinical psychologists. Basically, “Psychiatry” is too constraining.
• Pharmacology remains an important tool in studying and treating mental illness – its “eradication” sends the wrong message.
• Use of the term “Neuroscience” robs the ACNP of its unique focus on the intersection between neuroscience and psychiatric disorders and puts us at risk of becoming a mini-SFN (that wouldn’t compete effectively with Big SFN). We become just another neuroscience society without a clear focus. In a related vein, there are already many psychiatry and neuroscience meetings – we run the risk of losing attendees to these meetings rather than attracting people to our meeting if we alter our brand.
• Some viewed the name change through the lens of a perceived decline in attention to clinical research by the ACNP leadership and the Program committee, and viewed inclusion of the term “Neuroscience” as endorsing this decline. One respondent favored inclusion of “Psychiatry” in the College name if a translational mission will truly be emphasized going forward, but worried that this was just “bait and switch”.

Alternate names
Most who supported a name change favored selecting a name that matches the ACNP acronym, although this was not universal (see ‘Thinking outside the box’, below). However, they preferred other names to the version proposed by Council. In my opinion, these alternatives have merit, but they do not fully address the problems noted above with regard to the originally proposed name.

• American College of Neuropsychiatry or NeuroPsychiatry (the most frequent suggestion)
• American College of Neuroscience and Psychopharmacology
• Neuroscience, Psychiatry and Psychopathology
• American College of Neuroscience in Psychiatry
• Neuroscience, Psychopharmacology and Psychiatry
• American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and Neuroscience
• American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and Psychiatry
• American College of the Neuroscience of Psychiatry

Thinking outside the box
Several people expressed concern about selecting a new name based on a match to the ACNP acronym. The sentiment was that, if we are going to take the enormous step of re-naming the College, we should pick the best name regardless of letters. For example, given the precedent set by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (which continues to use their original acronym, NARSAD) and the magical power of colons, perhaps we could call ourselves ACNP: The American College of Translational Neuroscience, as one respondent suggested. I would welcome further input from the membership on this specific suggestion or related ideas.  Please send your thoughts to acnp@acnp.org.

JOURNAL NAME CHANGE
There was far less enthusiasm for changing the name of Neuropsychopharmacology. Some of the concerns most frequently raised were:

• NPP already has brand recognition – and it is well known that its scope is broader than “Neuropsychopharmacology”. The subtext on the cover (intersection of brain, behavior and therapeutics) is already right on target. Therefore, there is little to be gained and quite a bit that might be lost. We are giving up our niche and the power of a one-word name.
• Loss of impact factor calculation for 2 years following the name change will deter people from publishing in the journal. In the present era of scientific publishing, the journal might not recover from the resulting decline.
• We cited JAMA Psychiatry as precedent in the original email to the membership, but some questioned the validity of this example in light of changes in the scientific publishing landscape between the JAMA transition and the present time.
• Specifying “Neuroscience and Psychiatry” in the journal name is associated with the same concerns raised above regarding re-naming the college, namely apparent exclusion of neurology, psychology, pharmacology; and, depending on one’s viewpoint, it may make the journal sound too clinical (and discourage basic neuroscience submissions) or it may be perceived as inviting very basic neuroscience submissions that are unrelated to any brain disorder or its underlying pathology.
• If we re-name the journal exactly based on the College’s name, this will make it the “American journal of XXX” which does not fit NPP’s international scope.
• There is a predatory journal with a very similar name. In addition, there is already a journal with the AJNP acronym matching our suggested new name (American Journal of Nurse Practitioners).

Wrap-up
Based on responses to the survey and follow-up discussions within the ACNP Council, it makes sense to focus in the near term on whether or not to re-name the College and return to the issue of the Journal at a later time (particularly given the present uncertainty related to Plan S). The pros and cons of a College name change will be considered as part of the broader Strategic Planning effort now underway.  It is possible that we will ultimately decide to change the name of the College but not the Journal. If this is the case, we could address concerns about whether the Journal’s name is too limiting by moving further towards branding the Journal as NPP (rather than Neuropsychopharmacology). Finally, the possibility of retaining current names for our College and Journal should remain on the table.

I want to close by reassuring everyone that any change in the name of the College will ultimately be put to a vote of the membership.  As noted above, only 31% of the membership responded to the survey. It is possible that those who want to change the name(s) represent a minority but were more inclined to respond, or conversely that those strongly opposed to the change were more likely to respond. When this comes to a vote, it will be critical to hear from the maximal number of members so that not only the wishes of the most vocal individuals are heard.

Marina Wolf, ACNP President