ESRA Restart Group – Building the YOU-ROPEAN Society of the Future
The ESRA Restart Group was established in June 2026 as an initiative of the Interim Major Officers, following a challenging period for the Society and with the aim of creating a more stable, sustainable and future-ready environment for ESRA.
Its task is both important and ambitious: to take a fresh and comprehensive look at ESRA’s current governance framework and organisational structure and to develop proposals that will strengthen the Society for the years and decades ahead.
But the Restart Group is not simply about changing structures, rewriting documents or reorganising responsibilities.
At its heart, it is about building an even better ESRA for YOU.
ESRA has always been much more than an organisational chart.
It is a community of anaesthesiologists, pain physicians, researchers, educators, trainees, examiners, committee members, national representatives and countless colleagues who contribute their time, knowledge and enthusiasm to Regional Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine.
Hence every organisational structure, every governance process and every decision-making pathway should ultimately serve the people who make ESRA what it is.
YOU – our members.
The aim is therefore not change for the sake of change. It is to create a structure that allows ESRA to function even better, protects its collaborative culture, clearly defines responsibilities and prepares the Society for the challenges and opportunities of the future.
One of the most important principles of the Restart process is that the future structure of ESRA should not be designed by one individual or one part of the organisation. The different components of our Society must have a voice.
For this reason, the Restart Group deliberately brings together representatives from across ESRA’s executive, representative, educational and operational structures:
Peter Merjavy serves as Chair of the Restart Group, with Vivien Penning-Titze as Co-Chair.
The Restart Group is also formally listed now among the ESRA Working Groups, providing greater visibility of its work to the wider ESRA community.
This broad representation is fundamental, as Major Officers bring the perspective of the Society’s executive leadership. Executive Board and Council members bring their experience of strategic decision-making and representation. Committee and Diploma representatives understand the practical realities of ESRA’s educational, scientific and professional activities. And the ESRA Office brings the essential operational perspective of those who translate many of the Society’s decisions into everyday reality.
Bringing these voices together helps to ensure that the process is designed with ESRA, for ESRA and ultimately, for every ESRA member.
Since its first meeting on 29 June 2026, the Restart Group has met four times and identified several important areas for review.
These include the roles and responsibilities of the different ESRA bodies, how those bodies interact with one another, decision-making and oversight processes, the organisational structure of the Society, and the review and modernisation of ESRA’s regulatory framework, including the Bylaws and other relevant governance documents.
At the heart of this work is a common objective: to create a strong, positive, modern and collaborative organisational culture across ESRA and to strengthen it through shared responsibilities across all entities of the Society.
The Group is therefore looking not only at how ESRA is structured, but also at how ESRA works together.
For this the Restart Group has adopted a structured, step-by-step approach using a Delphi process to systematically gather, assess and refine different perspectives and proposals.
Through successive rounds, members assess individual statements and proposals. This allows the Group to identify areas where strong agreement already exists, while highlighting topics that require further discussion, clarification or development.
This approach is particularly important because the aim is not to create a structure based on the opinion of one person or one group. Instead, proposals should emerge from a transparent process involving the different stakeholder groups within ESRA and reflecting a broad consensus about how the Society should operate in the future, to create a sustainable, resilient and future-proof framework capable of supporting ESRA for many years to come.
Professional societies evolve: their activities grow, their responsibilities become more complex and expectations from members, partners and the wider medical community continue to change. Structures that worked well in the past may therefore need to progress to remain effective in the future.
The Restart Group is looking beyond the next year or the next election cycle. Its work is about creating foundations that can serve ESRA for the decades ahead. An organisation in which roles and responsibilities are clearly understood, communication is effective, decision-making is transparent, and appropriate checks and balances are in place. At the same time, ESRA must remain flexible enough to adapt as its educational, scientific and international activities continue to develop.
Above all, this means enabling the different parts of the ESRA to work together effectively, while recognising the crucial role of the ESRA Office and preserving what has always made our Society so special: the willingness of colleagues from different countries, backgrounds and professional roles to work together around a shared passion for Regional Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine.
The Restart Group may be carrying out the work, but the organisation we are trying to strengthen belongs to every ESRA member.
Every workshop, congress session, research project, educational initiative, Diploma examination, committee meeting and national society collaboration ultimately depends on people who choose to contribute their time and expertise.
That is why the future structure of ESRA must be designed around the people it serves.
Your Society. Your Community. Your Future.
Over the coming months, the Restart Group will continue its step-by-step work, refine its proposals and engage with the different parts of the Society.
We look forward to sharing the progress and developments of this work with our members at the next ESRA Annual Meeting in Bologna.
Because ultimately, the Restart process is about one simple goal: making ESRA stronger, more collaborative and better prepared for the future – for YOU.
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