The Bergey's Manual Trust met for its annual trust meeting in China during the Fifth Meeting of Bergey's International Society for Microbial Systematics (BISMiS) in Guangzhou, China on November 6-9, 2023. The Bergey's Manual Trust was a co-organizer for the meeting.

At the meeting, the Trust also presented its Bergey Award and Bergey Medal. Markus Göker received the Bergey Award, which is given to recognize outstanding contributions to bacterial taxonomy. Göker is head of the phylogenomics group at the Leibniz Institute DSMZ and secretary of the Judicial Commission of the International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes. Barny Whitman, an emeritus professor of microbiology of the University of Georgia and who has been involved in Bergey's Manual and Bergey's International Society over the years, received the Bergey Medal. The Bergey Medal is awarded to recognize outstanding and life-long contributions to the systematics of Bacteria and Archaea.