Dear ICIAM colleagues and friends,
This is the last issue of Dianoia this year, which also means that we will be saying goodbye to the founder and first editor-in-chief of Dianoia, Barbara Keyfitz. With much help from Sean Bohun, Barbara created the quarterly newsletter during her presidency (2011-2015), and since then has been extremely active to make it a success. Being an editor-in-chief is not easy, it often means chasing people for contributions, thinking also yourself about potential contributions or events that are important for the ICIAM community. By now, the newsletter is very well established, and I hope that all ICIAM member societies distribute it within their channels. The newsletter is one of the most important instruments of ICIAM as far as communication with its members is concerned. On behalf of all past and present officers, I would like to thank Barbara very much for the tireless efforts she has put into Dianoia. Thank you, Barbara! And, of course, we wish Jose Alberto Cuminato, better known as Poti, much success as the new editor-in-chief.
In the past few months, the officers have been meeting on a monthly basis. An important issue was the decision on the teams doing the site visits at the three potential locations for ICIAM 2031. By now, the teams have been decided, and site visits will be carried out in Busan (December 3-4, 2024), Brisbane (February 2025) and Boston (April 8-9, 2025). Full bids are expected to be available by the middle of November, perfectly in time for all site visits. Reports will be made, and then the final discussion will take place in Hanoi, September 13, 2025, during the ICIAM Board meeting. And then we will know the location of the ICIAM 2031 Congress!
The ICIAM 2027 Congress will already happen in less than 3 years; preparations are on-going and will be accelerated as we come closer to 2027. The congress is focussing on sustainability, which is an extremely important challenge for mankind. Besides that, the 2027 Congress will also be used to celebrate the 40th birthday of ICIAM. The Scientific Program Committee, led by Professor Barbara Wohlmuth of TU Munich, has been working very hard and has already supplied the list of proposed keynote speakers to the officers. In order not to waste time and leave the list untouched for a year, we have decided to call an extraordinary online Board meeting to discuss this list of keynote speakers. It will enable the organisers of ICIAM 2027 to use this list in their advertisements of the congress much sooner than September 2025 (the in-person Board meeting). The chair of ICIAM 2027, Professor Kees Vuik, anticipates that this could play an important role in attracting sponsors.
ICIAM and IMU continue to work on their common statement regarding bibliometric data, citation farms, paper mills and other issues that are influencing behaviour concerning publications. As announced in the previous issue of Dianoia, the reason for doing this is that the organisation Clarivate, which annually publishes a list of highly cited researchers (top 2%), has eliminated mathematicians in their 2023 list, and will probably do so also in the future, as there are strong suspicions of fraudulent behaviour. The IMU organised an event at the premises of the Simons Foundation in New York on September 12-13, ‘’Perspectives on Electronic Information & Communication in the Mathematical Sciences’’, and invited Luis Vega and myself to attend. It was a very interesting workshop, and we also used it to have a more detailed discussion on the joint statement which is foreseen to be available in November.
At the end of September, I also attended the annual Heidelberg Laureate Forum, where prize winners in Computer Science and Mathematics are invited and have discussions with more than 200 students invited from all over the world. The meeting always has great presentations about a variety of important topics, the prize winners playing a key role. Owing to the rather applied character of the presentations and panel discussion, presence of ICIAM prize winners would not be a bad idea. It would be great if they could also be invited.
In the past week, Kenji Kajiwara and myself attended the first African Conference on Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ACIAM 2024) in Cape Town. On the first day, the deputy minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology was present, as well as the ambassadors of Cameroon and Guinea. After having heard presentations about the importance of mathematics (among others also the ICIAM presentation), and about the lack of funding for African mathematicians to attend important conferences (at ICIAM 2023, not many Africans were present), he promised to invest more so as to increase the visibility of African mathematics. The ambassador of Cameroon was also very impressed, and promised he would show our presentations to his prime minister. Possibly, the next ACIAM conference will be held in Cameroon in 2026. An important event during ACIAM 2024 was the official founding of the organisation ASIAM, the African Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
The foregoing shows that there is much activity within ICIAM, and in industrial and applied mathematics worldwide. Also in the next period, there will be important congresses organised by our member societies. We refer to our web page to find more information.
Just as last time, I would like to draw your attention to an important election that will take place during the next Board meeting in Hanoi, namely the election of the president-elect. Later this year we will announce how to nominate candidates, but in view of the importance of this position I hope you will all start thinking about suitable candidates from your societies.
I sincerely hope we can continue to count on your support in all of ICIAM’s activities. Don’t hesitate to share your opinions, ideas or suggestions with us. We can learn a lot from each other, and being together will make mathematics, especially in applications and industry, much stronger and more visible. This is our joint mission!
Wil Schilders, president