The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Abel Prize for 2018 to Robert P. Langlands of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, USA, “for his visionary program connecting representation theory to number theory.”
For more information please consult the Abel Prize website http://www.abelprize.no/.

The IMU Executive Committee held its annual meeting at Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM), Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada, on Saturday/Sunday March 10-11, 2018.

Winners of the second Mathematics of Planet Earth (MPE) competition of modules for the Open Source MPE Exhibition will be announced by the Chair of the jury, Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel, during an MPE Exhibition taking place at Imperial College (London, UK) on October 21st 2017. More details at http://www.mathofplanetearth.org.

Maryam Mirzakhani, the world’s first woman to win the Fields Medal, passed away. The Fields Medal was awarded to her in 2014 for her outstanding contributions to the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces.

Born in 1977 in Tehran, Iran, Maryam Mirzakhani received her PhD in 2004 from Harvard University. From 2004 to 2008 she was a Clay Mathematics Institute Research Fellow and an assistant professor at Princeton University. She was a professor at Stanford University. Her honors include the 2009 Blumenthal Award for the Advancement of Research in Pure Mathematics, the 2013 Satter Prize of the American Mathematical Society, and the 2014 Clay Research Award. Representative of the many contributions commemorating her is this tribute to M. Mirzakhani.

The Ramanujan Prize Selection Committee has announced that the 2017 Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians from Developing Countries will be awarded to Eduardo Teixeira of the Federal University of Ceará, Brazil. The prize is in recognition of Teixeira’s outstanding work in Analysis and Partial Differential Equations. For more information, see the ICTP announcement below.

ramanujan_cite_2017

The IMU Executive Committee held its annual meeting at De Morgan House, London Mathematical Society, London, UK, on Saturday/Sunday April 1/2, 2017.

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Abel Prize for 2017 to Yves Meyer “for his pivotal role in the development of the mathematical theory of wavelets.”

The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, http://www.fields.utoronto.ca, will be hosting the Fields Undergraduate Summer Research Program, which welcomes undergraduate students from around the world for a rich mathematical research experience in July and August. This competitive initiative matches students with faculty from Fields Principal Sponsoring/Affiliate Universities, visiting scientists, or researchers in industry. Students accepted for the Program will have most of their travel and on-site expenses covered by the Institute. For more information on the program, please visit http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/activities/17-18/2017-fusrp.

see [Circular Letter to the AOs]. [Video]

The Ramanujan Prize Selection Committee has announced that the 2016 Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians from Developing Countries will be awarded to Chenyang Xu of Beijing International Center of Mathematical Research in China. The prize is in recognition of Xu’s outstanding works in algebraic geometry, notably in the area of birational geometry, including works both on log canonical pairs and on Q-Fano varieties, and on the topology of singularities and their dual complexes. For more information, see the ICTP announcement below.

ramanujan_cite_2016

The IMU is today launching the novel IMU Breakout Graduate Fellowship Program.

Thanks to a generous donation by the winners of the Breakthrough Prizes in Mathematics – Ian Agol, Simon Donaldson, Maxim Kontsevich, Jacob Lurie, Terence Tao and Richard Taylor – IMU with the assistance of FIMU and TWAS is today launching a fellowship program to support postgraduate studies in a developing country, leading to a PhD degree in the mathematical sciences. The IMU Breakout Graduate Fellowships will offer a limited number of grants for excellent students from developing countries.

The deadline for nominations is 09:00 am CET on 22 June 2016. Further information can be found in the Press Release and the Breakout Graduate Fellowship Call for Nomination, see below .

Press Release BGF Call for Nomination

The IMU Executive Committee (EC) held its annual meeting at the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences (RIMS), Kyoto University, Japan, on Saturday/Sunday April 2/3, 2016. In conjunction with this meeting EC members gave talks at RIMS and the Kyoto University, see http://www.kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~kenkyubu/ktgu-imu-math.html.

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Abel Prize for 2016 to Sir Andrew J. Wiles “for his stunning proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem by way of the modularity conjecture for semistable elliptic curves, opening a new era in number theory.”

The IMU’s Committee for Women in Mathematics (CWM) invites proposals for funding of up to €3,000 for activities or initiatives taking place in 2016, and aimed at establishing or supporting networks for women in mathematics, preferably at the continental or regional level, and with priority given to networks and individuals in developing or emerging countries. For more information see the CWM’s home page http://www.mathunion.org/cwm/.

The Association of Nepalese Mathematicians in America (ANMA), Nepal Mathematical Society (NMS) and mathematics departments in Nepal (Tribhuvan University and Kathmandu University) have planned an International Conference on Applications of Mathematics to Nonlinear Sciences, May 26-29, 2016, in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Please visit the Website www.nms.org.np for more information.

http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/fms

The Symposium will be centered on the work of Stanislav Smirnov (Fields Medal 2010), and its current and potential impact.

His research focuses on the fields of complex analysis, dynamical systems, and probability theory.
The scientific program is aimed at a wide audience, including graduate students, mathematicians in other research areas, and scientists who use mathematics in an important way. The public opening of the Symposium will feature two mathematics lectures, one which will be given by Stanislav Smirnov. The Symposium will also have a special event for high school and undergraduate students.

All events will be broadcast live online.

View Map

October 19 – Public Opening with Stanislav Smirnov, Isabel Bader Theatre, 7:00 p.m.

October 20 – Special Program for Students, Fields Institute, 5:30 p.m. followed by pizza dinner

The Ramanujan Prize Selection Committee has announced that the 2015 Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians from Developing Countries will be awarded to the Indian mathematician Amalendu Krishna in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the area of algebraic K-theory, algebraic cycles and the theory of motives. For more Information, see the ICTP announcement.

The International Mathematical Union released a Call for Bids for ICM 2022 together with ICM Bidding Guidelines which provide advice and instructions to potential bidders. For a bid to be considered by the Site Selection Committee (SSC) of IMU it must be received no later than November 30, 2016.

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Abel Prize for 2015 to John F. Nash, Jr., Princeton University and Louis Nirenberg, Courant Institute, New York University “for striking and seminal contributions to the theory of nonlinear partial differential equations and its applications to geometric analysis.”

The IMU Executive Committee (EC) held its annual meeting at the IMU Secretariat in Berlin on Saturday/Sunday March 14/15, 2015. On Thursday/Friday March 12/13, 2015 there was a meeting of the IMU Commission for Developing Countries (CDC) in the IMU Secretariat. The IMU EC and the CDC had a joint meeting on Friday in order to discuss major issues of activities  and the collaboration of the EC and CDC in the past, present and future. On Saturday/Sunday March 21/22, 2015 the IMU Committee on Information and Communication (CEIC) will also meet in the premises of the IMU Secretariat.

The five IMU prizes of 2014 have been awarded on August 13, 2014 during the Opening Ceremony of ICM 2014 in Seoul, Republic of Korea by Park Geun-hye, the Honorable President of Korea. Information about the 2014 winners can be found HERE (http://www.mathunion.org/general/prizes/2014).

The International Congress of Mathematicians 2014 (ICM 2014) has been opened by Park Geun-hye, the Honorable President of Korea. For information about the congress, the program, etc. click HERE (http://www.icm2014.org/).

The 17th meeting of the General Assembly of the International Mathematical Union has been closed. It took place in Gyeongju, Republic of Korea, on August 10th and 11th. The following major decisions have been made:

The IMU Executive Committee, the Commission for Developing Countries (CDC), and the IMU members of the joint International Commission on the History of Mathematics (ICHM) for 2015-2018 have been elected. Shigefumi Mori will be the next IMU President, Helge Holden the next IMU Secretary. Click here to view the new IMU leadership.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has been chosen as the site of ICM 2018, this congress will take place on August 7-15, 2018. São Paulo will be the location of the 18th meeting of the IMU General Assembly. More information can be found in the ICM 2018 bid book.

Papua New Guinea and Senegal were admitted as new IMU Associate Members.

The General Assembly has endorsed many guidelines, and in particular the document Recommendation on the evaluation of individual researchers in the mathematical sciences written by an ad-hoc committee set up by the IMU EC.

The last meeting of the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union during the term 2011-2014 has terminated in Gyeongju, Republic of Korea. The most important issues were the final preparations of the meeting of the IMU General Assembly (August 10-11, 2014, also in Gyeongju), the MENAO Symposium on August 12, and the International Congress of Mathematicians 2014.

The symposium will explore the distribution of mathematical talent and the opportunities to develop that talent as well as the intellectual and economic consequences arising from this distribution. It is postulated that mathematical talent is spread more or less equally between all nations and peoples, but the opportunities to develop this talent is concentrated in developed nations. The MENAO symposium will highlight countries and regions that have, within a relatively short period of time, seen immense improvements in economic development and societal well-being and explore the relationship between this development and the mathematical understanding of the nations in question.

The event, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU), will bring potential sponsors and cooperation partners together with projects and organizations related to mathematics in developing countries.  Highlighting past achievements and identifying future opportunities will also be part of the program.

The day-long symposium will include an overview of the development of mathematics in Korea and Chile, and its relationship with economic development, talks from senior economists from Stanford and Cambridge and Fields medallists and mathematicians from a variety of developing countries.

Participants will include international organisations like UNESCO and ICSU, foundations like Simons Foundation, Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation and Klaus Tschira Foundation, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), National Board for Higher Mathematics (NBHM, India), German Research Foundation (DFG), German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation (AvH),   Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NOW), ministers, ambassadors and other interested parties.

More information can be found at: http://www.mathunion.org/cdc/menao/

The Commision for Developing Countries (CDC) has released three reports on the state, challenges and opportunities  of mathematics in developing regions: Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

The report The INTERNATIONAL MATHEMATICAL UNION in the DEVELOPING WORLD: Past, Present and Future, commissioned by The Friends of IMU (FIMU) and the Commission for Developing Countries (CDC) has been released.

The Ramanujan Prize Selection Committee has announced that the 2014 Ramanujan Prize will be awarded to the Argentinian mathematician Miguel Walsh in recognition of his outstanding contributions to Ergodic Theory and Number Theory. For more Information, see the ICTP announcement.

A bronze plaque commemorating the Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel was inaugurated by representatives of Norway and the International Mathematical Union on April 6, 2014 in Berlin on the occasion of the 185th anniversary of Abel’s death. For more Information see the press release (in German) and further reports (http://www.mathunion.org/cdc/about-cdc/news-and-events/, http://www.math.berlin/orte/gedenktafel-niels-hendrik-abel.html).

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The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Abel Prize for 2014 to Yakov G. Sinai, Princeton University, USA, and Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, “for his fundamental contributions to dynamical systems, ergodic theory, and mathematical physics”.

The IMU Executive Committee held its annual meeting in Princeton, USA, on March 8-9, 2014 (a second meeting will take place this year immediately before the IMU General Assembly meeting in Gyeongju, Korea, August 2014). This meeting was hosted by the Mathematics Department of Princeton University. One big issue of the agenda was the forthcoming international congress ICM 2014.

The ICWM 2014 is an associated meeting of the International Congress of Mathematicians 2014 (ICM 2014) that will take place from August 13-21, 2014 in Seoul, Korea. The ICWM 2014 (http://www.kwms.or.kr/icwm2014) consists of two days of activities of which the first one is scheduled for August 12, 2014 at Ewha Womans University and the second for August 14, 2014 at the COEX Convention Center in Seoul, Korea. Please see the attached announcement for more information.

icwm2014_brochure_english(2014Jan)

The second Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF) will take place from September 21 to 26, 2014 in Heidelberg, Germany. Applications from young researchers to attend this Forum will be accepted until February 28, 2014. The HLF is looking for outstanding young mathematicians from all over the world who would like to get a chance to personally meet winners of the most prestigious awards in mathematics and computer science: Fields, Abel, Nevanlinna, and Turing Laureates. Details can be found at http://www.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/, https://application.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/intern/start_start_for.php.
If additional information is needed, please write to: info@heidelberg-laureate-forum.org.

Today, September 22, 2013 is the official opening of the Heidelberg Laureate Forum 2013. The Forum is the first of its kind, it gathers prominent scientists from the fields of mathematics and computer science, who are Abel, Fields and/or Turing laureates, and outstanding young researchers for a one week conference in the city of Heidelberg, Germany. For more information about the laureates, the Forum and the conference program see http://www.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/.

The Simons Foundation has made a three years grant to IMU’s Commission for Developing Countries (CDC) to support mathematicians working in a developing or economically disadvantaged country (as determined by the IMU) to travel to a center of excellence in any part of the world for collaborative research, see http://www.mathunion.org/cdc/about-cdc/news-and-events/.

The list of plenary and invited speakers of ICM 2014 in Seoul, Korea, is now posted on the ICM homepage. For the list of plenary speakers see http://www.icm2014.org/en/program/scientific/plenary, the list of sectional speakers can be found at http://www.icm2014.org/en/program/scientific/section.

The Ramanujan Prize Selection Committee has announced that the 2013 Ramanujan Prize will be awarded to Ye Tian, Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to Number Theory. For more Information, see the ICTP announcement.

The Niels Henrik Abel Board and the International Mathematical Union are pleased to announce the “Abel Visiting Scholar Program”.

The program invites mathematicians professionally based in developing countries to visit an international research collaborator for a period of one month. The period is extendable for up to three months in the case of matching support from the host institution. Up to three mathematicians per year will be supported.

The program is designed for post doctoral mathematicians in the early stages of their professional careers. It is designed to offer the opportunity for a “research sabbatical”, a necessary complement to teaching and other academic duties for mathematicians desiring to also sustain a viable research program.

Basic Requirements: Applicants must hold a PhD in Mathematics and be in the early stages of their professional careers. This means that the applicant should be under 40 years on July 1st, 2013 and not yet of full professorial rank. The maximum age may be increased by up to three years in the case of an individual with a broken career pattern. Applications from women mathematicians are strongly encouraged. The applicant should already have initiated research contact with the proposed international research partner. The collaboration should take place at the international partner’s home institution.

Financial Support: The grant will cover health insurance, visa cost, all travel (economy flights or equivalent) and living expenses including accommodation for one month for up to a total maximum amount of USD 5,000 per mathematician.

The Abel Visiting Scholar Program is administered by the Commission for Developing Countries (CDC) of the International Mathematical Union. A selection committee decides which applications are successful.

More information can be found here: http://www.mathunion.org/cdc/grants/abel-visiting-scholar-program/.

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Abel Prize for 2013 to Pierre Deligne, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, USA “for seminal contributions to algebraic geometry and for their transformative impact on number theory, representation theory, and related fields”.

The IMU Executive Committee (EC) held its annual meeting at the IMU Secretariat in Berlin on March 11-12, 2013. The meeting was preceded
by a gathering of the members of the Commission for Developing Countries and several guests. The IMU EC and CDC jointly decided, e.g., to host with the support of the ICM 2014 organizers a MENAO event (MENAO stands for “Mathematics in Emerging Nations: Achievements and Opportunities”) on August 12, 2013 in Seoul, Korea, aiming at finding additional support for mathematics in developing countries.

On March 5, 2013 the Mathematics of Planet Earth 2013 (MPE2013) initiative has its official European launch in Paris. In parallel the Mathematics of Planet Earth Exhibition is started. The event is organized by UNESCO and the International Mathematical Union (see press release).

The Fields Institute in Toronto, Canada will soon launch an annual event called the FIELDS MEDAL SYMPOSIUM, that will focus on the work of mathematicians honored by a Fields Medal. The Inaugural Fields Medal Symposium, entitled Fundamentals of the Langlands Program, will be held on October 15-18, 2012. It will be centered on the work of Ngô Bào Châu, and its current and potential impact.

The final report about the Future World Heritage Digital Mathematics Library Symposium that was held at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in Washington, DC, on June 1-3, 2012, organized by IMU’s Committee on Electronic Information and Communication (CEIC) is now available.

The Ramanujan Prize Selection Committee has announced that the 2012 Ramanujan Prize will be awarded to Fernando Codá Marques, Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in recognition of his several outstanding contributions to Differential Geometry.

In a letter to the IMU Adhering Organizations IMU President Ingrid Daubechies invites nominations for the IMU Prizes (Fields Medal, Rolf Nevanlinna Prize, Carl Friedrich Gauss Prize, Chern Medal Award, and Leelavati Prize sponsored by Infosys) and the ICM 2014 Emmy Noether Lecture to be awarded at ICM 2014. Nominations should be sent to the chairs of the respective selection committees observing the nomination guidelines.

Starting in September 2013, the “Heidelberg Laureate Forum” will bring together winners of the Abel Prize, the Fields Medal, the Nevanlinna Prize, and the Turing Award with young scientists from all over the world. The meeting will be held in Heidelberg, it is established and sponsored by the Klaus Tschira Foundation and organized in collaboration with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM; Turing Award), the International Mathematical Union (IMU; Fields Medal and Nevanlinna Prize), and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (DNVA; Abel Prize). The meeting is modeled after the annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings established more than 60 years ago. Press releases (in English and in German) of the event in Oslo, where the cooperation was established today, outline the plan in more detail.

On April 30, 2012, for the first time in the history of Nepal, a special celebration was staged to pay homage to six senior mathematicians who have served the country for more than 50 years and who are over 75 years of age. The prime minister of Nepal, Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, honored them in a grand ceremony that was followed by a parade around Kathmandu in open vehicles with  a music band followed by other mathematicians, students, and admirers. Photos can be found here.

The IMU Executive Committee held its annual meeting at IMPA, Rio de Janeiro, April 22-23, 2012. The EC appointed, for instance, all committees for IMU prizes. The chairs of the prize committees will be made public as soon as all committee members have accepted the request to serve.

Journal prices have been, since the beginning of the electronic publication age, an intensely discussed hot topic. Tim Gower’s call to action “Elsevier — my part in its downfall”  in January 2012 started a boycott against Elsevier running under the title “The Cost of Knowledge”. This movement has gained significant momentum and lead almost 10.000 researcher so far to sign a boycott list. The paper “Mathematicians take a stand” by Douglas N. Arnold and Henry Cohn that will appear in the Notices of the AMS was just released on the arXiv, see arxiv.org/abs/1204.1351. The authors survey the ongoing Elsevier boycott, examine pricing and bundling, and lapses in ethics and peer review. They conclude with thoughts about the future of mathematical publishing.

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Abel Prize for 2012 to Endre Szemerédi, Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, and Department of Computer Science, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA “for his fundamental contributions to discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science, and in recognition of the profound and lasting impact of these contributions on additive number theory and ergodic theory”. For more information about the laureate, his achievements and the Abel Prize, visit the Abel Prize website http://www.abelprisen.no/en/.

The Ramanujan Prize Selection Committee has announced that the 2011 Srinivasa Ramanujan Prize will be awarded to Philibert Nang, University of Libreville, Gabon in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the algebraic theory of D-modules. The prize is also in recognition of Dr. Nang’s determined pursuit of high level research while engaged in an academic career in his home country of Gabon, Africa.

Today the IMU Secretariat inaugurated its archive in Berlin. The archive has been set up by former IMU Secretary Olli Lehto, it was hosted and maintained for 17 years at the University of Helsinki. All documents have now been moved to Berlin. The archive opening was part of a small workshop where the future organization and format of the archive was discussed. The ‘inauguration‘ was highlighted by the presence of Olli Lehto, who, in the course of collecting material for the IMU archive, wrote the book “Mathematics without borders: a history of the International Mathematical Union”. His speech at the workshop provided a brief survey of the history of IMU and its archive.

John Ball, Oxford Centre for Nonlinear PDE, Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford, was elected Ordinary Member of the Executive Board of ICSU (International Council for Science) at ICSU’s 30th General Assembly in Rome, Italy. John Ball who is Past President of the International Mathematical Union is the first ever mathematician on this board. He will be in office until 2014 when the next ICSU General Assembly will take place.

As part of the Capacity and Networking Project (CANP), a workshop called EDIMATHS is taking place in Mali, from the 19th-30th September 2011 at the University of Bamako. The workshop is supported by UNESCO, IMU, CIMPA, SCAC/Bamako, the  Ministre de l’Éducation, de l’Alphabétisation et des Langues Nationales and the Ministre de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de laRecherche Scientifique du Mali. CANP is the major development initiative of the International Commission for Mathematical Instruction (ICMI). It aims to provide regional development for mathematics teacher educators, enhancing the mathematical and pedagogical potential of the region. More information here.

The program is designed to enhance the mathematical capacity &productivity of recipient research groups. The project will focus on mathematicians and their graduate students at institutions of higher learning in sub-Saharan Africa. The Foundation will make competitive awards that, taken together, will total approximately 400,000 USD per year for each of the next 10 years. More information: https://simonsfoundation.org/mps-africa-mathematics-project

Today the IMU celebrates its 60th anniversary after its rebirth in 1951. On September 10, 1951 Börge Jessen (Denmark) announced to the National Adhering Organizations that the Union was officially established after ten countries had joined the Union (see page 86 of Olli Lehto’s book “Mathematics without borders, a history of the International Mathematical Union”).

The International Mathematical Union (IMU) and the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) jointly constituted a Working Group on Journal Ranking. The Working Group has finished its work and produced a Report which is now electronically available. The report was discussed in a minisymposium at ICIAM 2011 in Vancouver. IMU and ICIAM have afterwards decided to start a blog on Journal Ranking in the fall of 2011. Note added: The blog on mathematical journals was opened on November 18, 2011. Please contribute to the discussion.

The International Mathematical Union released a Call for Bids for ICM 2018 together with Guidelines for ICM2018 Bids which give advice and instructions to potential bidders. To be considered by the Site Selection Committee of IMU, bids must be received not later than November 30, 2012.

The Ramanujan Prize was awarded today to Yuguang Shi from Peking University, China during a ceremony at ICTP in Trieste.

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Abel Prize for 2011 to John Milnor, Stony Brook University, NY “for pioneering discoveries in topology, geometry and algebra”. For more information about the laureate, his achievements and the Abel Prize, visit the Abel Prize website www.abelprisen.no/en/.

The IMU Executive Committee has its annual meeting in Perth, Australia, on Februar 27-28, 2011. This is the first occasion of an EC meeting in Australia in IMU’s history. The meeting is hosted by the University of Western Australia, which also organized a two-days workshop, the MathWest Workshop 2011, one of the events in the University of Western Australia’s Year of Mathematics 2011.

On the occasion of the establishment of the IMU Secretariat in Berlin a grant program, called IMU Berlin Einstein Foundation Program (EFP) has been established aiming at the support of interactions of young mathematician from developing and economically disadvantaged countries with the lively mathematical environment in Berlin.

The permanent IMU Secretariat has been opened today at the Weierstrass Institute in Berlin, Germany. Press releases and media reports (tv, radio, newspapers) about  the event and photos can be found here.

The Ramanujan Prize Selection Committee has announced that the 2010 Srinivasa Ramanujan Prize will be awarded to Professor Yuguang Shi of the School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University.

The International Mathematical Union disseminates a press release announcing the final version of the document ‘Best Current Practices for Journals’ produced by IMU´s Committee on Electronic Information and Communication (CEIC) and endorsed by IMU’s General Assembly.

The International Congress of Mathematicians 2010 has been opened by Shrimati Pratibha Patil, the Honourable President of India. Four Fields Medals, the Nevanlinna, Gauss, and Chern Prize have been awarded. Click here for detailed information about the 2010 Prize winners. The slides (PowerPoint & PDF) contain the citations as well as the names of the members of the various Prize Committees. A video of the Opening Ceremony can be found at the ICM 2010 online streaming archive

During the ICM 2010 Opening Ceremony, the International Mathematical Union has inaugurated the server http://www.mathunion.org/ICM which provides access, free of charge, to the articles in all ICM proceedings volumes since the beginning of this series of congresses. IMU is grateful to all publishing houses that have granted the right to digitize these books. IMU particularly appreciates the work of R. Keith Dennis (Cornell University) and Ulf Rehmann (Universität Bielefeld) who have volunteered to digitize the articles.

The 16^th General Assembly of the International Mathematical Union has been closed. It took place in Bangalore, India, on August 16th and 17th. The following major decisions have been made:

The IMU Executive Committee, the Commission for Developing Countries (CDC), and the IMU members of the Joint International Commission on the History of Mathematics (ICHM) for 2011-2014 have been elected. Ingrid Daubechies will be the next IMU President, click here to view the new IMU leadership.

Seoul, Republic of Korea, has been chosen as the location of ICM 2014, this congress will place in the second half of August 2014. Gyungju will be the location of the next General Assembly.

The Weierstrass Institute Berlin, Germany, will host the permanent office of IMU. The new office will take up its operation in January 2011.

Montenegro became a new IMU Member, Cambodia, Moldova, Nepal, and Oman became new IMU Associate Members, the South-East Asia Mathematical Society became a new IMU Affiliate Member.

The General Assembly has endorsed the document ‘Best Current Practices for Journals‘ produced by IMU´s Committee on Electronic Information and Communication (CEIC).

The Inamori Foundation promoting academic and cultural development and international understanding, annually awards three Kyoto Prize to those who have contributed significantly in the categories of “Advanced Technology”, “Basic Sciences”, and “Arts and Philosophy”. The laureate for the 2010 Kyoto Prize in the category “Basic Sciences” is IMU President László Lovász for “Outstanding Contributions to Mathematical Sciences Based on Discrete Optimization Algorithms”. More details can be found at: http://www.inamori-f.or.jp/e_kp_lau_thi.html

The International Mathematical Union has produced an information brochure with a survey of all current IMU activities. The printed version of this booklet will be distributed to all participants of the International Congress of Mathematicians 2010 in Hyderabad.

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Abel Prize for 2010 to John Torrence Tate, University of Texas at Austin “for his vast and lasting impact on the theory of numbers.” For more information about the laureate, his achievements and the Abel Prize, visit the Abel Prize website www.abelprisen.no/en/.

The Ramanujan Prize Selection Committee has announced that the 2009 Srinivasa Ramanujan Prize will be awarded to Ernesto Lupercio, a researcher at CINVESTAV, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Mexico.

The International Mathematical Union is offering now videos that were recorded at the International Congresses of Mathematicians in 1998, 2002, and 2006. These videos show the opening ceremonies, most of the plenary lectures, and other major events. They can be viewed and are free for download.

The International Mathematical Union (IMU) and the Chern Medal Foundation (CMF) jointly launch a new mathematical prize, the Chern Medal Award, in memory of the outstanding mathematician Shiing-Shen Chern. The Award is to be given to an individual whose lifelong outstanding achievements in the field of mathematics warrant the highest level of recognition. It consists of a medal and a monetary award of US$ 500,000. Half of the amount shall be donated to organizations of the recipient’s choice to support research, education, outreach, or other activities to promote mathematics. For more information see the Press Release and the Chern Medal Program Guidelines (which also inform about the nomination procedure). The Chern Medal will be awarded for the first time at the opening ceremony of ICM 2010 in Hyderabad, India on August 19, 2010.

The Organizers of the International Congress of Mathematicians 2010 in Hyderabad have issued the official “First Announcement of ICM 2010”  and invited all mathematicians to preregister at the ICM 2010 Website.

The International Mathematical Union (IMU), together with the John Templeton Foundation, releases a brief report “Mathematics in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities” on the current state of mathematics in Africa and on opportunities for new initiatives to support mathematical development. The study was prepared by IMU’s Developing Strategies Group and financed by the John Templeton Foundation.

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Abel Prize for 2009 to Mikhail Leonidovich Gromov, Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, Bures-sur-Yvette, France, “for his revolutionary contributions to geometry???. For more information about the laureate, his achievements and the Abel Prize, visit the Abel Prize website www.abelprisen.no/en/

The 2008 Srinivasa Ramanujan Prize has been awarded to Enrique R. Pujals, Associate Researcher at the Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada (IMPA), Brazil.

The Shaw Prize Award Presentation Ceremony will be held on 9 September 2008, see http://www.shawprize.org/en/shawprize/presentation/release.html

IMU has released, in cooperation with ICIAM and IMS, the report “Citation Statistics” which analyzes the use and misuse of citation data in the assessment of scientific research, see also IMU-Net 29b of June 2008 and the corresponding press release. The report discusses, in particular, the impact factor, the h-index and variants of these that are often employed to rank not only journals but also individuals, departments, or whole institutions and is available for republication.

If you are interested in ICM 2010 in Hyderabad in India, go to the ICM 2010  server for  information at present.

The next IMU Executive Meeting will be held on April 18-19, 2009 in Fuzhou, China.

The International Council of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM), the Institute of Mathematics and Statistics (IMS), and the International Mathematical Union (IMU) have formed a Committee of “Quantitative Assessment of Research” that will investigate various aspects of the quantitative assessment of research in mathematics. The Committee will, in particular, look into impact factors and similar ways to measure research output.

The Committee consists of:

• Robert Adler (Haifa, Israel), appointed by IMS
• Peter Taylor (Melbourne, Australia), appointed by ICIAM
• John Ewing (Providence, USA), appointed by IMU.

The Committee is expected to create a summary of its findings to be endorsed by the Executive Committees of ICIAM, IMS, and IMU and to be published afterwards.

ICIAM, IMS, and IMU have formulated an aspirational charge to help set direction rather than prescribe the final outcome of the committee’s work.

The IMU secretariat has been moved to the Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum für Informationstechnik Berlin (ZIB) for the years 2007 – 2010.

The official postal address for correspondence with the IMU secretariat is as follows:

International Mathematical Union
Office of the Secretariat
Zuse Institute Berlin
Takustr. 7
D-14195 Berlin
Germany

Fax: +49 30 84185 – 269
E-mail: secretary(at)mathunion.org

Secretary: Martin Grötschel

ICM 2006 opened and IMU Prizes awarded Speech of IMU President John Ball at the Opening Ceremony in PDF.