A major desire of the Society has been to exercise its responsibility for European Neurochemistry in promoting close relationships with Neurochemistry elsewhere in the world, with neuroscience societies and relevant clinical societies. Indeed our Society has done much to initiate this: there were very successful joint meetings with the World Federation of Neurology in 1982, 1986, and 1988. Also, quite early in our existence, we suggested to ENA that we should organise joint symposia or workshops and perhaps eventually joint meetings. This took some time to arrange, partly due to the annual change in ENA officers. However the first joint workshop between ENA and ESN (on co–transmitters, organised by B. Hamprecht) proved a major attraction of the 1982 meeting in Taormina . This was followed by other ENA–ESN symposia:

· during our Fifth ESN meeting in Budapest , 1984, one on “Transmitter Receptors” was organised by K. Fuxe;
· at the ENA meeting in Amsterdam in September 1995 two symposia were organised by H. Soreq, both related to neuroactive drugs: “Neurocognitive drugs” and “Structural biology of neuronal proteins”;
· at the ENA meeting in Strasbourg in September 1996, one on “MRS Studies on Neuronal/Glial Interactions” was organised by the author, with another on “Taurine” organised by K.Tipton.

Joint symposia have also been held with the American Society for Neurochemistry at their main meeting in Houston (March 1992) on "Glial cell function", organised by A. Dahlström and J.–M. Matthieu, and another during the ESN Meeting in Dublin (August 1992) on "Growth Factor Expression", was organised by J. DeVellis and M. Sensenbrenner.

For the first time a full joint meeting with ISN was our 13th., held in Berlin in 1999, and will be repeated in 2005 in Innsbruck . This reflects a general policy that ISN's main biennial meetings with be held in association with sister societies, ASN, ESN and APSN.

In addition to the General Meetings and the Joint ESN–WFN meetings described above, the Society has sponsored some specialised small meetings, summarised in

Table 4 ESN-Sponsored Small Meetings on Specialised Topics

Year	Place	Topic	Organiser
1978	Brussels	Neuropeptides and proteins	A. Lowenthal, J.J.Vanderhaeghen
1978	Antwerp	Neuronal secretion	W.P. De Potter
1979	Selva di Fasano	Brain development	C. Di Benedetta (1)
1980	Seillac	Myelination	N. Baumann (2)
1981	Schloss Elmau	Axoplasmic transport	D.G. Weiss (3)
1982	Strasbourg	Cholinergic transmission	R. Massarelli
1982	Rome (with WFN)	Energy Transduction	A.M Guiffrida- Stella (4)
1987	Leipzig	Alzheimer's disease	D. Biesold, V. Bigl

(1) "Multidisciplinary Approach to Brain Development", ed. C. Di Benedetta, R. Balazs, G. Gombos & G. Porcellati(Elsevier).
(2) "Neurological mutation affecting myelination", ed. N. Baumann (Elsevier)
(3) "Axoplasmic transport", ed. D.G. Weiss (Raven Press)
(4) "Energy Transduction & Neurotransmission", ed. G. Benzi, A.M. Guiffrida-Stella, H.S. Bachelard & A. Agnoli(Menarini Foundation, Rome).