The International Society for Biosemiotic Studies (ISBS) is an academic society for the researchers in semiotic biology. The Society was established in 2005. Its official journal is

Biosemiotics Biosemiotics (from the Greek βίος ''bios'', "life" and σημειωτικός ''sēmeiōtikos'', "observant of signs") is a field of semiotics and biology that studies the prelinguistic meaning-making, biological interpretation processes, p ...

, published by

Springer Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag. ** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...

and launched in 2008. The purpose of the ISBS is to constitute an organizational framework for the collaboration among scholars dedicated to biosemiotic studies, including the

interdisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...

research of

sign process Semiosis (, ), or sign process, is any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. A sign is anything that communicates a meaning, that is not the sign itself, to the interpreter of the sign ...

es in living systems, organic codes, and

biocommunication Biocommunication may refer to: * Biocommunication, the field of medical art and illustration, and other allied communication modalities; see Medical illustrator * Biocommunication (science) In the study of the biological sciences, biocommunication ...

. The ISBS attempts to develop the

qualitative research Qualitative research is a type of research that aims to gather and analyse non-numerical (descriptive) data in order to gain an understanding of individuals' social reality, including understanding their attitudes, beliefs, and motivation. This ...

methods in biology. Among the central focuses is also theoretical semiotics as a basis for

theoretical biology Mathematical and theoretical biology, or biomathematics, is a branch of biology which employs theoretical analysis, mathematical models and abstractions of the living organisms to investigate the principles that govern the structure, development a ...

. The ISBS assures the organization of regular meetings on research into the semiotics of nature, as well as promotes publication of scholarly work on the semiotics of life processes. The ISBS organizes the annual international conferences (''Gatherings in Biosemiotics'') that were started by Copenhagen and Tartu biosemioticians and have taken place regularly already since 2001.Rattasepp, Silver; Bennett, Tyler (eds.) 2012. ''Gatherings in Biosemiotics''. (Tartu Semiotics Library 11.) Tartu: University of Tartu Press. The first President of the ISBS was

Jesper Hoffmeyer Jesper Hoffmeyer (21 February 1942 – 25 September 2019) was a professor at the University of Copenhagen Institute of Biology, and a leading figure in the emerging field of biosemiotics. He was the President of the International Society for Bios ...

(Copenhagen University), the second President (since 2015) is

Kalevi Kull Kalevi Kull (born 12 August 1952, Tartu) is a biosemiotics professor at the University of Tartu, Estonia. He graduated from the University of Tartu in 1975. His earlier work dealt with ethology and field ecology. He has studied the mechanisms ...

References

External links

Homepage of the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies''Biosemiotics'', the official journal of the Society
International scientific organizations Biology organizations Semiotics organizations {{semiotics-stub