ICA is thriving. Over its 60+ years of history, the association has managed to become one of a very few global learned societies for communication scholars. Successive presidents have each made their own contribution, improving, expanding, and further consolidating a very healthy venture. In this statement, I will describe my priorities to help ICA keep pace with an evolving context characterized by fast-paced structural changes at many levels (institutions, methods, tools, objects, the discipline itself). If I were elected president of ICA, my initiatives would focus on three objectives: widening the scope of the association by expanding its international outreach, creating more opportunities to voice the views of the membership, and devoting more space to the teaching of communication science.

International Outreach. The constant efforts of ICA to become truly international have paid off. Yet some regions are still underrepresented in ICA membership, particularly Latin America, Africa, and Asia. I would like to further develop the initiatives undertaken thus far to get colleagues from these regions involved, notably by organizing and endorsing more events in their countries, by doing more to overcome language barriers, by enhancing the travel grants, and by collaborating more with regional associations. My objective is to position ICA explicitly as a global forum for national and regional associations worldwide.

During my term as president of European Communication and Research in Education Association (ECREA), I have actively promoted collaboration among international scholarly associations, with the aim of fostering synergies while avoiding frontal competition. As a result, ICA, IAMCR, and ECREA are taking ever more joint initiatives. If elected, I would foster the cooperation and propose to explore the possibility of combined membership fees whereby scholars would be encouraged to join both ICA and their regional association at a discounted cost.

Voice of the members. ICA has played an instrumental role in shaping and enhancing the visibility of our discipline and community. Such visibility creates new opportunities to promote the views of communication scholars and, where relevant, defend their interests. For example, the increasing use of questionable metrics to assess the quality of research and researchers is an area that ICA should intervene in. When promoting quality, we must ensure that assessments are truly quality-based, which is not the case when bibliometrics restricted to fuzzy and deficient lists of journals become predominant. If communication scholars find these new evaluation metrics problematic, then ICA, in a concerted effort with other associations, should voice the disagreement and advocate alternative approaches. The communication director who will soon reinforce the staff of ICA will play a decisive role in pursuing these aims. This is one of the reasons why I have actively supported the creation of this new position.

Teaching matters. Most of us are not only researchers, but also teachers. Because teaching is taken for granted, the educational paradigms tend to be overlooked. Higher education is in turmoil in many countries and our teaching environment is changing dramatically: Ever larger groups, heavier teaching loads, more demanding students, and a more pressing institutional audit culture. Meanwhile, new technologies are opening up an astounding range of creative ways to teach.

ICA should develop activities more systematically oriented towards teaching, among which opportunities to share experience and good practices. So much innovation in communication pedagogy goes unnoticed. Using new tools and creative approaches constitute opportunities to improve our teaching while facing the challenges and constraints imposed by our increasingly demanding societies.

Conference (London 2013). If elected, I will be responsible for organizing the 2013 annual conference in London. The prospect of presiding over the preparation of the conference in such a vibrant hub is thrilling. The presence in and around London of an abundance of cutting-edge communication research, creative industries, artistic movements, institutions, and organizations, all woven in the multicultural fabric of the city, yields tremendous possibilities for an outstanding conference. I would do my best to elaborate a conference theme that appeals broadly to members, but with a twist of contention conducive to lively debates, which make up the essence of the best conferences. I would also call on the expertise of members to make a more intense and even experimental use of communication technologies so as to enhance the experience and the engagement of participants (and nonparticipants). A measured, yet inspired use of microblogging, instant messaging, and other social media should be organised much more systematically where appropriate, before, during and after the conference.

About me. I am a full professor at the Universite libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium, where I teach media sociology and political communication. I am head of the Department of Information and Communication Sciences, which serves 1,500 students. My research interests include journalism and news media, as well as political communication, with special emphasis on information and communication technologies. I am the author or coauthor of a number of books, book chapters, journal articles and a number of expert reports, including a recent report on the state of the news media in French-speaking Belgium for a Parliamentary committee. I am also a member of several editorial boards, expert panels, and councils.

My academic career has from the start been deeply rooted in international endeavours, which gave me the opportunity to become the president of ECREA. Together with a talented and dedicated team, I developed, organized, and consolidated an association now over 2,800 members strong, and involved in a range of activities including a yearly doctoral summer school, a book series, and numerous conferences and workshops.

My extensive experience in communication research and teaching, as well as in institutional management, conference organisation, advocacy, and international scholarly associations would all be assets in my contribution to steering ICA in the years to come.

Should you want to know more about my profile, research, and teaching activities, you are most welcomed to follow the short-links to my homepage (http://goo.gl/cPKbI), my Academia.edu page (http://goo.gl/0jb88) or my list of publications on ResearcherID (http://goo.gl/oJti1).