All about IUPS
The International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS) is a Not-for-Profit collective of physiological societies from all corners of the globe, founded in 1953. IUPS works to champion physiology without borders and to remove political barriers from physiologists interacting.
Welcome!
Established in 1953, IUPS is a collective of national and international organizations that represent physiologists around the globe. Our current membership includes more than 60 national physiological societies (as adhering bodies), 13 associate members, and 5 regional physiological federations in Africa, Europe, Asia and Oceania, Latin America, and Scandinavia.
The mission of IUPS is to promote physiology worldwide, both in research and education, and to champion the importance of physiology as an indispensable scientific discipline, emphasizing its relevance to medicine and global health. In pursuit of our mission, IUPS provides a universal voice for physiology, connects global physiologists, assists dissemination of modern physiologic teaching and modeling, stands up for research standards and integrity in physiology, facilitates interactions between physiologists and other branches of science and medicine, and supports education and networking of young physiologists worldwide. We convene an IUPS Congress every four years at which physiologists from around the globe interact to enrich the discipline of physiology. In between the quadrennial Congress, IUPS endeavors to support holding regional meetings and workshops, to provide mentoring services, and to host equipment exchanges. The next IUPS Congress will be held in Frankfurt/ Main Germany on September May 11-14, 2025.
Moving IUPS forward, we need to recognize the new advances in cellular and molecular biology, immunology, and genetics since the beginning of this millennium, and more recently the application of artificial intelligence in biomedicine and health. The challenge to IUPS and all physiologists as a community, therefore, is to provide functional significance of the mountains of molecular data for the ultimate existence of humankind roots in its functional expression. Human life in its fullest form represents a well-coordinated operational framework that integrates every level of functional execution, one that links genes, molecules, proteins, cells and organs to the whole body; in a process we call physiology. Our new IUPS initiative is to take full advantage of this prime time for a “Year of Physiology” by relaying a series of international meetings organized by IUPS, our member societies, and regional federations to actively advertise physiology at the global level, and to provide platforms of interdisciplinary interactions by reaching out for new potential attendees from biochemistry, molecular/cellular biology, medicine, and other disciplines to physiological meetings.
Our Organization
Active physiologists from more than 60 national societies devoted to their unique discipline work on promoting physiology on the international scene. Teams (commissions and committees) in different bodies of IUPS contribute to promote the different projects and tasks of IUPS worldwide.
Our Mission & Vision
The mission of IUPS is to foster physiology worldwide, both in research and teaching, and to give our discipline a global voice.
Our Member Societies
IUPS currently represents more than 60 national physiological societies which give their input to IUPS.
Our History
The wars and political developments in the first half of the last century have shown that science can be abused by political systems and should not be impeded by borders. The visionary founders of IUPS have striven to promote physiology at an international level without borders, integrating different cultures and traditions. They envisioned the global interchange of ideas and to enable physiologists to know one another personally around the globe.
Our Awards
IUPS is focusing on promoting physiology by awards. Advanced physiologists are invited to give prestigious named lectures highlighting important developments in physiology. Physiologists in an early state of their career are promoted with travel awards which enables them to attend international meetings and to get in contact with their scientific heroes and to start forming their own scientific networks