At this point in December, it is timely to reflect on the past 12 months and to look forward to a new year and the exciting opportunities it will bring.

ISAC is deeply grateful to its Executive Committee, Member Societies, Working Groups, staff and partners for their unwavering support and collaboration over the course of this year.

The biggest undertaking for ISAC in 2025, was a major strategy review to shape the society’s future and expand its mission. Thank you to ISAC’s stakeholders whose engagement during the process was invaluable. As a result of the review:

• ISAC has renewed its commitment to promote diagnostic and antimicrobial stewardship to control antimicrobial resistance globally.
  
• As a federation of affiliated member societies, it will introduce a number of initiatives to advance healthcare worldwide by empowering its members and giving them a platform to amplify their voices. Initiatives will include fostering collaboration and mutual learning by connecting societies from high-resource and low-resource settings and empowering national and regional societies to effect relevant local change.

Education remains central to the fulfilment of ISAC’s aims and 2026 will see development of the ISAC Academy which continues to provide free resources in a number of modalities, many of which will be delivered in partnership with international and national partners.

One of the highlights in 2026 will be ISAC’s 34th biennial International Congress of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ICC), which will take place in Manila on 7 – 9 December 2026, in partnership with the Philippine Society for Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. We look forward to welcoming many of you there.

On behalf of all at ISAC, I wish you a happy holiday season and a healthy and successful year ahead. We look forward to continued collaboration with you and to building our global network.

With kind regards
Prof. Souha Kanj
President, International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ISAC)