EDITORIAL MICROSURGERY 27:357–359 2007 THE EUROPEAN MICROSURGICAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATION In Europe, there are many centers of excellence in microsurgical research regarding both clinical and basic science aspects of this discipline. However, nowadays, successful research in microsurgery needs to be based on a multidisciplinar and integrated approach, that is to inte- grate investigation techniques and competencies that belong to different disciplines such as surgery, physiology, anat- omy, cell and molecular biology, bioengineering, and bio- material science. Carrying out advanced research in any of the aforementioned scientific fields requires considerable resources in terms of trained personnel (scientists and tech- nicians), expensive scientific instruments, and other specific research facilities. It is therefore very difficult to own all resources in a single center. For this reason, multidisciplinar international collaboration is of basic importance for the progress in microsurgical research, as well as in any other scientific field. 1–3 MISSION STATEMENT The European Microsurgical Research Association (EMRA) (Fig. 1) has been found with the aim of promot- ing excellence in basic and clinical microsurgical research in Europe by improving scientific and didactic exchanges among European centers. Among the various possible types of activities that could be undertaken for reaching this ultimate goal, two initial objectives have been identified as follows: a) the organization of EMRA meetings inside major international scientific conferences; b) the development of a European Network of Excellence in Microsurgical Research (ENEMRe), regarding both clinical and basic science aspects of this discipline. Regarding the first point, EMRA has already organ- ized three major meetings at international congresses to present its activities and obtain feedback from European microsurgeons: i) II Congress of the World Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery held Heidelberg (Germany) in 2003, ii) Euromicro2004 held in Barcelona (Spain), iii) Euromicro2006 held in Cluj-Napoca (Romania); (Fig. 2). For the future, plans are to organize regular EMRA meet- ings at every Euromicro biennial conference as well as to promote local EMRA meetings at national microsurgical conferences of European country members. Regarding the second point, that is, development of a ENEMRe, the basic requisites for inclusion of a Research Unit (RU) as an Excellence Center in this network have been identified and include a) the scientific production of the candidate RU (articles, books, congress activity, etc.); b) the scientific and teaching resources and facilities owned by the candidate RU; c) the clinical experience and competency of the candidate RU. In addition, will- ingness of a RU to ‘‘offer’’ for scientific collaboration purposes to other RUs of the network its specific compe- tencies will be given particular importance in the selec- tion process. Identification of local network coordinators (LNCs) for each country or regional area is sought to help recruitment of new RUs in their country/region, to help candidate RUs in preparing the application to the ENE- MRe, to share with the other LNCs the problems (and hopefully the way to overcome them) in the recruitment process, to help EMRA selection committee in the evalu- ation of the applications coming from their local geo- graphic area, and finally to help EMRA supervision com- mittee in assessing the progress of the project in their local geographic area. Besides the recruitment process, the definition of a system of rules of ‘‘engagement’’ of RUs included in the Published online 27 June 2007 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley. com). DOI 10.1002/micr.20371 V V C 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.