The Slovenian Microbiological Society (SMD), one of our 54 Member Societies, celebrated their 60th anniversary of the establishment of the society. The event took place on 30 September 2019 at the Janeza Hribarja great hall, at the Faculty of Biotechnology of the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia.

Beside members of the Slovenian Microbiological Society and invited guests from Slovenia, there were several special invited guests:

• Prof. Vaso Taleski, FEMS Director of Events and Internationalization, on behalf of FEMS
• a delegation of the Croatian Microbiological Society: the current president Prof. Roberto Antolović, and two former presidents: Prof. Ljiljana Pinter and Prof. Danko Hajsig
• Prof. Peter Raspor, former President of the Slovenian Microbiological Society, former Delegate to FEMS and former FEMS Secretary General

Prof. Peter Raspor gave an introductory speech, followed by talks by the invited guests. Prof. Danko Hajsig and Prof. Roberto Antolović emphasised excellent collaboration between both societies in the past 60 years.

Prof. Vaso Taleski, on behalf of FEMS, congratulated the SMD for this great anniversary occasion. He emphasised that the Slovenian Society is a very active FEMS Member Society. It also has a special place in history of FEMS, since the 1st FEMS Congress of European Microbiologists was organized in Ljubljana in 2003, and the European Declaration for Microbiology was announced during that congress.

He encouraged young Slovenian microbiologists to apply actively for more FEMS grants and also suggested to the society that it consider submitting a proposal to help organize of one of the future FEMS Conferences of Microbiology or even another FEMS Congress.

Prof. Maja Rupnik, President of the SMD, expressed gratitude to all members of the society and all present guests, and gave a talk on the activities of the society in past 10 years. The programme was followed by presentations of all sections of the SMD, and finished with a round-table discussion.

Reporting on the event submitted by Prof. d-r Vaso Taleski, FEMS Director of Events and Internationalization