Category: Call

Dear SAMS member,

The 68^th Annual SAMS Congress of the South African Mathematical Society (SAMS) will be hosted by Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha on 2 – 5 December 2025. The Local Organizing Committee (LOC) of the SAMS congress would like to send a request out to SAMS members who are interested in organizing a special session as part of the congress. All interested persons should please inform Prof M Weigt via email, Martin.Weigt@mandela.ac.za, by no later than Tuesday 17 June of his / her interest to host a special session and a title of the session. A short email is all that is required.

The following is an alphabetically ordered list of special sessions that were organized at last year’s SAMS conference. We invite the organizers of these sessions to inform the LOC whether they are willing to continue hosting their respective sessions.
In addition, proposals for new special sessions are warmly welcomed and encouraged.

1. Categories, Algebra, Topology and Logic
2. Discrete Mathematics
3. Functional Analysis and Operator Theory
4. Lie symmetries and other approaches in solving nonlinear differential equations
5. Mathematical Modelling of Ecological and Epidemiological Systems
6. Mathematics of Gravity
7. Tertiary Mathematics Education Research

Thank you very much for your assistance.

Kind regards,
Prof Martin Weigt

Dear colleagues

I am pleased to invite you to contribute to a Special Session on “Evolution Equations and Operator Semigroups: Theory and Applications” at the forthcoming AIMS Conference in Athens, Greece, to be held 6–10 July 2026 (https://aimsconference.org/conferences/2026/index.html) This session will bring together researchers working on the modeling of dynamic systems—ranging from well-posedness and asymptotic analysis to nonlinear and stochastic perturbations—and their myriad applications in control theory, fluid dynamics, population biology, and beyond.

Our goal is to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue that bridges abstract operator theory with practical challenges. We particularly welcome talks that highlight novel methodologies—such as integro-differential approaches, fractional calculus, and non-autonomous frameworks—as well as contributions that showcase data-driven or infinite-dimensional perspectives. Early-career researchers and women in mathematics are especially encouraged to participate, enriching our community’s future.

The special session format allocates 30-minute slots for each presentation (including discussion), in line with the conference’s overall structure for special sessions. While the official abstract-submission deadlines are yet to be announced on the AIMS site, I would be grateful to receive your expressions of interest by e-mail. Please send related questions and abstract suggestions directly to my email at BuddeCJ@ufs.ac.za. For full session details and to prepare your submission, please visit the session webpage:
http://aimsconference.org/AIMS-Conference/conf-reg2026/ss/changeApp12.php?ssid=111AIMS Conference

I very much look forward to assembling an engaging program and hope to see many of you in Athens for what promises to be a vibrant week of mathematical exchange. I need to emphasize that I will not be able to cover any registration fees, travel or accommodation costs involved.

Best wishes
Christian Budde

Please take note of the call for Universities to nominate their best honours student(s) who enrolled for a degree in Mathematics and/or Applied Mathematics in 2024 for the SAMS Bronze medal. The contact person in this regard is the General Secretary of SAMS, Dr. Christian Budde: buddecj@ufs.ac.za or secretary@sams.ac.za. 

For more details regarding the procedure and participation, please consult the SAMS website (accessible from this link).

Joint LMS-SAMS-SAMSA meeting will be hosted in South Africa in the first week of September. The meeting will have a scientific component, but its main goal is to identify and establish/strengthen mathematical partnership(s) between UK and Southern Africa. SAMS members are requested please to write an email to SAMS President (president@sams.ac.za) if they have suggestions who could be included/invited from Southern Africa or the UK to participate in the meeting (self-nominations are welcome). SAMS is looking for mathematicians (at any stage of their career) who are most likely to engage in long-lasting collaboration across UK and Southern Africa in mathematics and its applications (existing collaborations included if there is a prospect for strengthening them). Resources are limited and we cannot guarantee that we will be able to approach/invite all individuals identified. Preference will be given to those who work in areas that are well established and well represented in Southern Africa or the UK and those who lead a group in a particular area. Please provide context with the nominations (if there are existing collaborations, with whom, and what are the indications that the person is interested in such collaborations). Nominations should please reach the SAMS President by 10 May, but later nominations may also be considered.

Jack Carr PhD Internship Programme

Two internships are available to current PhD students in an
African University to spend up to 6 weeks doing research related to their PhD topic at the Maxwell Institute for the Mathematical Sciences in Edinburgh (in partnership with Heriot-Watt University and Edinburgh University). A grant of up to £ 4,000, offered by the Jack Carr Fund, will cover travel, accommodation and subsistence costs for the duration of the internship. Those interested can find more details in the attached poster.

The South African Mathematical Society (SAMS) strives to foster international collaborations with other societies. Currently, there are ongoing communications with the American Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS). The director of AIMS suggested that South African representatives could organize special sessions at the 2026 AIMS Conference in Athens, Greece (see  https://aimsconference.org/conferences/2026/index.html).

There is already a proposal to organize a special session on the topic “Evolution equations and operator semigroups” by Christian Budde (UFS). Anyone else who is interested in organizing a special session at the AIMS Conference is kindly asked to contact Christian Budde (BuddeCJ@ufs.ac.za or secretary@sams.ac.za).

Regarding funding for attendance of special session organizers at the AIMS Conference, we have to negotiate with the AIMS Council. However, we first would like to table some suggestions for special sessions before asking for support.

European Statistics Awards Programme

Eurostat is pleased to announce the final round of the European Statistics Awards for Web Intelligence, with a focus on Multinational Enterprise (MNE) Groups Data: Discovery & Extraction Challenges. Running in parallel, these competitions aim to drive innovation, develop new methodologies, and benchmark approaches for processing web content in MNE Group data analysis.

Both competitions are now open for registration and the deadline for registering is 22 April 2025.

By running both challenges simultaneously, the European Statistics Awards Programme aims to strengthen MNE Group Data analysis by enabling those participants that develop integrated pipelines to benefit from possible synergies, while also allowing specialised teams to fully focus on either of the two challenges. 

The competition focuses on three main objectives: fostering innovation in web intelligence for statistics, benchmarking methods for identifying financial MNE Group data sources, and assessing extraction techniques using advanced technologies. This initiative contributes to refining methodologies and enhancing statistical practices in MNE Group analysis.

Do you know how to code in Python or R? Register by 22 April 2025 and try your chances on your own or with a team of colleagues.

You and your team have the chance to win up to €50 000 by securing first place in all three award categories across both competitions.

The top prize breakdown per competition includes:

• €10 000 for Accuracy Award
• €10 000 for Reusability Award
• €5 000 for Innovativeness Award

Additionally, second and third place prizes are awarded as follows:

• Accuracy Award: €5 000 (2nd place) | €3 000 (3rd place)
• Reusability Award: €5 000 (2nd place) | €3 000 (3rd place)
• Innovativeness Award: €3 000 (2nd place) | €1 000 (3rd place)

By placing first in all three categories in one competition, your team could win up to €25 000, and by doing so in both competitions, you could win a total of €50 000.

For more information on the European Statistical Awards Programme, please refer to the European Statistics Awards website or drop us a line to learn about any further details.    

Many thanks in advance for considering signing up, and for sharing this information,   

The European Statistics Awards secretariat   

info@statistics-awards.eu   

https://statistics-awards.eu

In (early) preparation for this year’s AGM meeting at the 69th annual SAMS Congress scheduled to take place at Nelson Mandela University in December 2025, the current SAMS Council is requesting nominations for two positions that will become vacant when the terms of the respective Council members come to an end. Specifically, these include the important portfolios of the President and Financial Manager, currently held by Prof. Zurab Janelidze and Dr. Wen-Chi Kuo, respectively.

For more details on the responsibilities of the Council members and a description of these positions, kindly consult the SAMS website: https://www.sams.ac.za/governance-sams

Please send any nominations of capable individuals, accompanied by this nomination form and a short CV of the nominee, to the General Secretary of SAMS, Dr. Christian Budde, at buddecj@ufs.ac.za or secretary@sams.ac.za by no later than 1 September 2025.

As a member of SAMS, you are invited to nominate candidates for two awards of the South African Mathematical Society. The two awards are the SAMS Award for Research Distinction and the SAMS award for Advancement of Mathematics. Further information about the description of these categories, and the nomination procedure, can be found here on the SAMS website. Kindly send your nominations to the Vice-President of SAMS, Dr. Amartya Goswami at agoswami@uj.ac.za, by no later than 31 May 2025.

In preparation for this year’s AGM at the 67th annual SAMS Congress scheduled to take place at the University of Pretoria from 4 to 6 December 2024, the current SAMS Council requested nominations for three vacant positions. These included the portfolios of the Vice-President and Education, currently filled by the interim members Prof. Seithuti Moshokoa and Dr. Belinda Huntley, respectively, and the recently vacant Liason portfolio.

For more details on the responsibilities of the Council members and a description of these positions, kindly consult the SAMS website: https://www.sams.ac.za/governance-sams

We are happy to report that we received the following nominations:

• Dr. Amartya Goswami (A_Goswami_CV) was nominated for the position of Vice-President.
• Dr. Rina Durandt (R_Durandt_CV) was nominated for the Education portfolio.

Sadly, we did not receive any nominations for the vacant Liason portfolio. We hope to address this during the AGM, where we will give SAMS members the opportunity to nominate appropriate candidates, and to give their views on the suitability of the nominations already received.

We look forward to your participation in this year’s AGM.