ICIAM Dianoia. Volume 9, Issue 1 January 2021

This is the information we had at time of publication. Dianoia will publish supplements as more notices are received. Societies are listed in alphabetical order by acronym.

AMS
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On February 1, new members of American Mathematical Society governance took office. President Ruth Charney of Brandeis University began her two year term as AMS President, as Jill Pipher completed her two years in the position. Secretary Boris Hasselblatt of Tufts University will organize and coordinate the AMS Council and its committees. Treasurer Douglas Ulmer of the University of Arizona will supervise the administration of fiscal policies. In addition, Hee Oh took office as an AMS Vice President, David R. Morrison began his term on the AMS Board of Trustees, and around 200 AMS committee members began their service. Read more about the new leaders of the AMS at https://www.ams.org/news?news_id=6580 and at http://www.ams.org/about-us/governance/governance.
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ANZIAM
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The ANZIAM AGM was held at its annual conference (online this year) on 2 February 2021. Graeme Hocking was re-elected for a second year as Chair and Natalie Thamwattana was elected as Deputy Chair. Yvonne Stokes and Michael Plank will continue as representative to the ICIAM Board.
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AWM

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February 1, 2021 was the date for the official presidential transition at AWM.  Kathryn Leonard began her 2-year term as AWM President after spending a year as President-elect. Ruth Haas now becomes Past-President for one year, having completed her 2 year term as President.

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CSIAM
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2021 is the last year of the 7th Council of CSIAM. As the President of CSIAM, Pingwen Zhang will lead CSIAM to mainly focus on promoting the integration and cooperation between mathematics and industry, and construction of CSIAM's flagship journal--- CSIAM Transactions on Applied Mathematics (founded in 2020，https://www.global-sci.org/csiam-am.html), and will complete  the election of the next council of CSIAM. For more information please see: https://www.csiam.org.cn/english/index
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Czech Math Society
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The Czech Mathematical Society  (CzechMS) is one of four scientific sections of the Union of Czech Mathematicians and Physicists (JČMF). Besides other  activities it represents the Czech mathematical community in international organizations such as IMU,  EMS or ICIAM. Its Executive Committee is elected for a 5 year term by the general assembly of the society that is usually held within the Conference of Czech Mathematicians. The last conference was organized in February 12-13, 2018 by the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University in Prague. The members of the Executive Committee elected during the XIV-th general assembly of CzechMS for the years 2018-2022 are L. Pick – chair, B. Maslowski – the first vice-chair, M. Plesinger – the second vice-chair, P. Stehlik – secretary and D. Hlubinka – treasurer. M. Rozloznik will continue to serve as a representative of CzechMS at ICIAM Board Meetings.
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Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung
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On January 1st 2021, the new president of the German Mathematical Society DMV (Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung) Prof.Dr. Ilka Agricola took up her two-year term. She is full professor of Differential Geometry and Global Analysis at Philipps-Universität Marburg and served several years on the DMV Steering Comittee before. For more information, see  https://www.mathematik.de
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ECMI

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New terms for ECMI President and VicePresident started on January 1st, 2021. Natasa Krejic began as ECMI president for 2021-2023,  while Alessandra Micheletti took the role of Vice President for the same period. Micheletti will be the  ECMI representative in the ICIAM board. More information is available at https://ecmiindmath.org/bodies-of-ecmi/board/
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EMS
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After the elections in summer 2020, on January 1 for the European Mathematical Society in the leadership a new vice president, Jorge Buescu from the University of Lisbon took office, replacing Armen Sergeev from the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.  
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GAMM
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2021 is a year of continuity for the GAMM leadership, which changes every three years. Jorg Schröder, a mechanical engineer from the University of Duisburg-Essen, is serving from 2020 to 2022; with the past-president, Heike Faßbender, an applied mathematician from the Technische Universität Braunschweig, serving as vice president. GAMM keeps a careful balance between applied mathematics and mechanics, with presidents from mathematics in years 1,2, or 3 modulo 6, and from mechanics in years 4, 5 and 0 modulo 6. The vice president is the past-president. The representatives in the ICIAM board, Peter Benner (Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems, Magdeburg) and Sergio Conti (University of Bonn) also remain in charge. More information on the GAMM leadership may be found here https://www.gamm-ev.de/index.php/en/organisation/managing-board.html
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IMA
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Dr Nira Chamberlain began his second year as President of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA) on 1 January 2021.  Nira, who  is Professional Head of Discipline – Data Science at SNC-Lavalin Atkins, has worked on many mathematical modelling projects in a variety of industrial settings.  He is also a keen supporter of equality, diversity and inclusion.
 
Nira, together with the IMA Council, takes a strategic overview of the policies and development of the Institute.
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IMS
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The leadership of the IMS can be found here: https://imstat.org/current-ims-council/
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Korean Mathematical Society
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Prof. JongHae Keum at Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS) continues his second two-year term as the president of Korean Mathematical Society (KMS) and Prof. June-Yub Lee at Ewha Womans University becomes a KMS representative to the ICIAM Board starting on Jan. 1, 2021.

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London Mathematical Society

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From November 2020, the London Mathematical Society’s President Jon Keating embarked on his second year in office. A Fellow of the Royal Society, Jon is currently Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Oxford, with previous positions at the Universities of Bristol and Manchester. The Society’s representative who attended meetings of the ICIAM Board was previously Dr Mariya Ptashnyk from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, who stood down from that position when she left the Society’s Council of Trustees in November 2020. Council agreed at their meeting on 5 February 2021 that the new ICIAM representative should be Professor Elaine Crooks, a Member-at-Large on Council who is Head of the Mathematics Department at Swansea University. More information on the members of the Society’s Council can be found here: https://www.lms.ac.uk/about/council

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(SAMS) South African Mathematical Society
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The Council of the South African Mathematical Society (SAMS) was elected at the SAMS 2019 Congress, and is serving a 2-year term. The SAMS President is Precious Sibanda, the Vice-President is Seithuthi Moshokoa, and the SAMS representative to ICIAM is Eunice Mphako-Banda. More information about the SAMS Council, and the names of the other members, can be found at http://www.sams.ac.za/governance.html
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SBMAC
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Every odd-numbered year is an election year at Sociedade Brasileira de Matemática Aplicada e Computacional (SBMAC). In 2021 members will elect new officers and five new councellors, who will start in January, 2022. The current officers are:

Pablo Martín Rodríguez (UFPE-Recife, President)
Kelly Cristina Poldi (Unicamp-Campinas, Vice-President for Events) 
Rubens de Figueiredo Camargo (UNESP-Bauru, Vice-President for Communication) 
Carlos Hoppen (UFRGS-Porto Alegre, Secretary)
Mateus Bernardes (UFPR-Curitiba, Secretary for Publications)
João Carlos de Oliveira Souza (UFPI-Teresina, Secretary for Regional Liaison)
Marina Andretta (USP-São Carlos, Treasurer)
More information may be found at www.sbmac.org.br/sbmac/diretoria/ (Board of Directors) and https://www.sbmac.org.br/conselho/ (Councellors)
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SeMA 
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On December 21st, the General Assembly of SeMA elected Manuel J. Castro as its president. Manuel Castro, who comes from the University of Málaga, replaces Rosa Donat, who served as SeMA president for 4 years. In the same General Assembly, Teodoro Roldán, from the U. Pública de Navarra, was also elected as a member of the executive committee of the society, replacing Soledad Pérez, from the U. La Laguna. More information on the society can be found at https://sema.org.es/en/ 
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SIAM
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January 1, 2021 marks the beginning of new terms for several key SIAM people. On that day, Suzanne Weekes began as the new Executive Director of SIAM. An applied mathematician, Suzy came to SIAM from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.  Also, January 1 in odd-numbered years marks the turnover in SIAM Presidents. Susanne Brenner began her 2-term as SIAM President as Lisa Fauci completed her 2 years in the position. Susanne will become one of SIAM's two representatives to the ICIAM Board, along with SIAM's VP for Programs Jim Nagy. SIAM's policy is that the SIAM President and the VP for Programs are its representatives to the ICIAM Board. More information on SIAM leadership may found here  https://www.siam.org/about-siam/leadership
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SMAI

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The Société de Mathématiques Appliquées et Industrielles (SMAI) has a new President since July 2020. Olivier Goubet succeeded Thierry Horsin who served three years as President.

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SPM (Portuguese Mathematical Society)
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New terms for Portuguese Mathematical Society (SPM) President and Vice Presidents started on September 1st, 2020. João Araújo began as SPM
President for 2020-2022,  while Patrícia Gonçalves and Jorge Milhazes de Freitas took the role of Vice Presidents for the same period. Adérito 
Araújo will be the SPM representative in the ICIAM board. More information on SPM board can be found at

https://www.spm.pt/spm/orgaos_sociais/direcao

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Swedish Mathematical Society
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Tomas Persson is the president of the Swedish Mathematical Society, until June 2021, when a new president will be elected. Åke Brännström is acting as the society's representative for ICIAM.
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UMI
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The Italian Mathematical Union is going to have elections in a few months and the new leadership will take office as of June 1st, 2021. 
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Venue: Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.

Date: August 20---25, 2023

We have begun organizing ICIAM 2023. Despite the recent surge of Covid-19 cases in Japan, organizing committee members are working with high spirits. Congress website will soon be opened, where you will find details of the congress. On behalf of the organizing committee I would like to express my sincere hope to meet you in the congress. 

Congress Director Shin’ichi Oishi, Waseda University

The Japan Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

Tokyo: A metropolis full of attractions like no other

About the International Science Council in 2020 - 2021

The International Science Council (ISC) was created in 2018 as the result of a merger between the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the International Social Science Council (ISSC). It is a non-governmental organization with a unique global membership that brings together 40 international scientific Unions and Associations and over 140 national and regional scientific organizations including Academies and Research Councils.

ICIAM was an associate member of ICSU, and automatically became an affiliated member of ISC. For years ICIAM has been trying to understand how to participate in ISC in the best possible and most efficient way; it is not easy to understand how. While in ICSU, ICIAM participated in the General Assemblies, even if as an associate member it did not have the right to vote, and the same has been happening with ISC since 2018. ICIAM created a committee to organize or structure its participation in ICSU’s or ISC’s activities. The first chair was T. Mitsui. After some years, B. Keyfitz joined him in the management of the committee and since 2019 I have been involved in this task. The committee has been trying to follow the policy of ISC, understanding the main activities and as much as possible, participating in online meetings and answering polls and requests sent to members. 

In the past, ICSU launched calls for projects, to which the members could apply, and that is how ICIAM was able to participate in the ‘Gender Gap’ project, which was mainly funded by ICSU and later by ISC. But since 2018 such calls are no longer launched. ISC works in a different manner, setting up a broad range of co-sponsored international research programs, networks and committees; the ISC’s activities span a broad range of issues, from global sustainability, poverty, urban health and wellbeing and disaster risk reduction, to data, observing systems and offering science advice to governments.

The ISC’s activities focus on three principal areas of work:

• Science-for-policy: to stimulate and support international scientific research and scholarship, and to communicate science that is relevant to international policy issues.
• Policy-for-science: to promote developments that enable science to contribute more effectively to major issues in the international public domain.
• Scientific freedom and responsibility: to defend the free and responsible practice of science.

A very detailed action plan for the years 2019-2021 has been published and is available at ISC’s website. The documents produced by ISC are rich and interesting. Debates are also proposed online, for instance recent very interesting debates on scientific publishing which were an addition to the preliminary document prepared by experts in the topic.

Members are asked to contribute in the debates and also to nominate experts to be part of the different panels and working groups. ICIAM has not been very successful recently in making significant contributions, mainly because it is not easy to propose experts in our community, people who are ready to spend time working in those panels on the proposed topics, where it is not always easy to contribute as mathematicians. Some time ago, the ICIAM president asked all ICIAM members for suggestions of experts in the main subjects of interest for ISC. Some names were proposed and in the near future they should be either added to the ICIAM ISC committee or contacted as potential experts. But the input from the members was not as wide as expected. People who are interested in a more detailed picture of the projects ISC is involved in (and particularly how their budget and sponsorship arrangements work) might consult an article in ICIAM DIANOIA by B. Keyfitz ("About the International Science Council", ICIAM DIANOIA, Volume 8 Issue 1.)

Let us hope that in the future ICIAM will be able to have a more efficient participation in this international body which is the voice of Science in places like the UN and plays an important role in the International Network for Government Science Advice.

Maria J. Esteban Past-President of ICIAM and current chair of the ISC Committee of ICIAM

The UN general assembly has proclaimed the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-30). The French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) is among the world's leading research institutions. Its scientists explore the living world, matter, mathematics, the universe, and the functioning of human societies in order to meet the major challenges of today and tomorrow. How does this institution plan to address the specific issue of the ocean, and what role may mathematics play?

Anne Corval, advisor to the scientific director of the CNRS, coordinated a Task Force Ocean to prepare the institution for this Decade, and Fabrizio D’Ortenzio, oceanographer at the CNRS, was one of the animators of the meetings organized to gather contributions from all sciences. In this interview, they address this question.

What is the strategy of the CNRS to address the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development? 

Anne Corval. In this context, and in relation to its more general implication with the UN sustainable development goals, the CNRS launched, as early as 2018, a Task Force Ocean (TFO) aiming at:

• A closer collaboration between its research institutes, that cover many disciplines, around scientific issues related to the Ocean;
• Providing better visibility and acknowledgment of Ocean sciences within the CNRS;
• Spreading information on emerging topics and on their possible funding;
• Reinforcing the interface between scientists and policy makers;
• Contributing to research planning.

The need for interdisciplinary exchange to (1) identify issues related to the ocean and for which the diversity of the CNRS is an under-exploited asset and (2) build new approaches in the way to handle these issue appeared very quickly. The first step was to gather, in January 2020, about a hundred scientists from all disciplines in order to know the different work carried on in the research departments affiliated to the CNRS and related to the ocean, and to work on the identification of guidelines for a shared strategy. 

How was this meeting organized in order to gather the contributions of all the disciplines that were represented and that can be as different as Mathematics and Humanities and Social Sciences? 

Anne Corval. A first session of plenary conferences presented the major issues the ocean has to face: (i) interaction between ocean and climate, (ii) evolution of marine biodiversity, (iii) blue growth versus resilience of the ocean, and (iv) protection measures that have to be enforced. The 108 participants were then divided into 4 parallel workgroups: 

• Ocean at the digital age: observation, modeling, data 
• Ocean: cultures, heritage and resources 
• Adaptation of living organisms and of societies to changes in the ocean 
• The ocean, a research lab for all disciplines 

Every participant was asked to participate in two different workgroups in order to confront and crossbreed different scientific approaches. Each group was conducted by three or four scientists from different disciplines. 

A synthesis was then performed within each group, and a global synthesis was then written by the scientists who conducted the four workgroups. This synthesis now serves as the basis of a Research Group on the Ocean, a network that should start, in 2021, to support the scientific animation of this new interdisciplinary community around the ocean. 

You conducted the first of the workgroups (Ocean at the digital age: observation, modeling, data). Can one say that we are witnessing the emergence of a new interdisciplinary effort to answer the environmental and societal challenges related to the oceans? 

Fabrizio D’Ortenzio. We start from a situation where interdisciplinarity around ocean studies has reached different levels, depending on the scientific discipline. It is very strong between physics and mathematics for instance, and probably less between, say, humanities and engineering. Even though we may all work on issues related to the ocean, there is very often a lack of knowledge about the organization of the research activities in other disciplines, and even about these research activities themselves! But the environmental issues at stake are so important that researchers are very willing to go further in this interdisciplinary path; they are probably more advanced than the research institutions on this matter.

Mathematics play a role in many of the issues discussed during this meeting (multi-scale analysis, model coupling, data analysis, scientific computing, population dynamics, etc). However, the involvement of mathematicians in this ocean related research activity is far below what it could be. What is the reason for that?

Fabrizio D’Ortenzio. One of the most obvious conclusions of this meeting is that interdisciplinarity works well when all the scientists involved participate in the construction of the research program and are not treated as mere service suppliers. A mathematician, as a researcher, has his or her own research program, and is not in general interested in solving someone else’s technical questions, especially if they are not especially interesting from the mathematical viewpoint. But the same mathematician might be thrilled to contribute to a collective scientific effort if he or she has the opportunity to participate in it, and his or her expertise can bring much more than the answer to some technical questions. The same thing holds true for other disciplines of course; for instance, researchers in social sciences are often contacted at the very end of a research project to assess its social acceptability, while they can bring much more if they participate in the project from the beginning. 

You recently created a new interdisciplinary network related to oceans. Could you give some details?

Fabrizio D’Ortenzio. The CNRS is probably one of the most inter- and multi- disciplinary research organization in the world. CNRS members provide high-level science in nearly all the disciplines of modern research. The CNRS is therefore a perfect organization to initiate a “real” multi-disciplinary effort around a specific “object”, such as the ocean. The GDR ("research federation" or “groupement de recherche” in French) “Ocean and Sea” is then a way to concentrate, organize and encourage the efforts of CNRS around research on the oceans. The activities of the GDR will focus in particular on the “no man’s land” between the disciplines, trying to foster connections between the scientists and the laboratories interested in the understanding of the oceans, their sustainable development and protection. A very large committee, composed of representatives of all the disciplines (that is, from physics to literature and sociology), will determine all the marine/oceanic topics demanding a multi-disciplinary approach, and also will try to organize the different communities to answer the related scientific questions in a more efficient way. 

What role do you expect for mathematicians?

Fabrizio D’Ortenzio. The need for mathematicians is very strong in ocean research and they are involved at many steps: multiscale analysis, inverse problems, big data and artificial intelligence, model coupling, population dynamics, scientific computing, etc. But they are very often contacted too late or only when their help is needed, not from the beginning of the conception of the research program, which they could have pointed the project in a much more efficient way regarding mathematical issues if they had been involved earlier. A few years ago, a report “Mathematics & the complexity of the earth system” was published by the MathsInTerre research think tank, showing how the input from mathematics could be beneficial in many aspects, and reciprocally, how new mathematical theories could arise from such collaborations.

RESEARCH GRANTS FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

The Call for Applications is now open for the research grants for developing world scientists at TWAS, the World Academy of Sciences. https://twas.org

Under this scheme, grants are awarded to promising high-level research projects in Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics carried out by scientists in one of the eligible S&T-lagging countries identified by TWAS. Grants are available for both individual early career scientists as well as research groups. 

Research Grants to individual scientists amount to a maximum of USD 15,000; grants to research groups may be up to USD 30,000. 

The grants, which are normally provided for a period of 24 months, may be used to purchase scientific equipment, consumables and specialized literature (textbooks and proceedings only). They do not cover salaries of researchers and/or students, field expenses, or travel expenses. In addition, the purchase of laptops, tablets, drones and laboratory animals is not supported.

Eligibility

• Individual applicants must be nationals of developing countries. They must hold a PhD, be at the beginning of their careers, but already have some research experience. They must hold a position at a university or research institution in one of the S&TLCs and be under 45 years of age.
• Applying research units must be led by a renowned researcher who is a national of a developing country, who holds a PhD and who has good research experience. The research unit should operate within a university or a research institution in one of the S&TLCs and should include a minimum of the Principal Investigator (group leader), plus at least two PhD-qualified researchers and a number of PhD and MSc students, technicians, etc. There is no age limit for unit leaders.
• Applicants must at the time of application NOT have an active research grant with TWAS or OWSD Early Career Women Scientists (ECWS) Fellowship.
• Applications from women scientists and those working in Least Developed Countries are especially encouraged.

Apply

For more information about the individual research groups including how to apply, see: https://twas.org/opportunity/twas-research-grants-programme-basic-sciences-individuals
For more information about the grants to research groups, including how to apply, see: https://twas.org/opportunity/twas-research-grants-programme-basic-sciences-groups
The deadline for applications for both grants is April 14, 2021. 

For opportunities for women, see also www.owsd.net
@OwsdSecretariat
* COUNTRIES ELIGIBLE FOR THE GRANTS 
Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Kiribati, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mongolia, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Paraguay, Rwanda, São Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, West Bank & Gaza Strip, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.