Author: Francois Schulz

Communication from the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM)

If SAMS members are interested in any of the following opportunities, please contact the SAMS President (president@sams.ac.za) by 24 April 2024.

Pre-bids ICIAM 2031:

Following current rules, the online 2024 ICIAM Board meeting will be the place to present and discuss the pre-bids for ICIAM 2031. Only pre-bids approved and selected by the Board will be allowed to present a complete bid, to be discussed in the 2025 Board meeting, where the final decision will be made about who will organize ICIAM 2031. If your society plans to bid, please read the following document (https://iciam.org/news/24/1/13/call-pre-bids-hosting-and-organising-iciam-2031-congress) describing how to prepare a bid. Note that in a pre-bid, details have to be given to the Board about location, organizing group, some plans about financial issues, the scientific program committee (SPC), etc., but the pre-bid document does not need to contain the precise and complete information that a final bid contains.

As written in the rules (see website), pre-bids should be sent to the president (president@iciam.org) no later than April 30, 2024, and it is possible to submit the document by email. 

Nominations for ICIAM officer-at-large:

Based on the decisions made at the 2022 Board meeting, ICIAM will elect two more Officers-at-Large at our next board meeting, which will be held online on June 17, 2024. The term in office is 4 years and is renewable once. Remember that, at the 2023 Board meeting in Tokyo, the Board already elected two additional Officers-at-Large. With the additional two Officers-at-Large being elected at the June meeting, we will have a total of 6 Officers-at-Large (besides the President, Past President, Secretary and Treasurer), as decided in 2022. I am therefore asking you to nominate candidates for the position of Officer-at-Large (see https://iciam.org/iciam-officers for a list of current officers).

The duties of an ICIAM Officer-at-Large include attendance of the monthly online meetings of the officers, as well as a possible face-to-face meeting of the officers and the annual Board meeting (online in even years). ICIAM has funds to cover travel expenses, in case they are needed. In addition, it is expected that the Officer-at-Large actively contributes to ICIAM business, e.g. by participating in one of our committees, see https://iciam.org/iciam-commitees, and other tasks defined in the meetings of the officers. Diversity and geographical spread are important criteria, besides that we encourage nominations of candidates with technical skills in maintaining websites and/or experience in managing social media.

Nominations by member societies should be sent to president@iciam.org and secretary@iciam.org by April 30, 2024.

ICIAM Conference Support for Applied and Industrial Mathematics in Developing Countries:

The International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) has adopted the policy that in non-Congress years it will give support to existing conferences (typically to three conferences per year), with the support used to fund a number of ICIAM Fellowships for participants from developing countries and regions.

The following principles will govern this support:

1. Applications should be submitted a year in advance by email (secretary@iciam.org) to the ICIAM Secretary. There is no prescribed form for the application. Applicants should give details of the conference, the organizing body, and the plans for the use of ICIAM funds (including the plans for support through ICIAM Fellowships).
2. Each year there will be two rolling deadlines on 30 April and 31 October each year. The decision on which conferences to support, if any, will be made by the ICIAM Officers within one month of each of the deadlines. The Officers’ decision will be final.
3. The level of support will be up to USD 3,500 per conference: a proportion of these funds is normally paid upfront when the application has been approved, and the remaining funds are paid after the conference has taken place and the report has been received and approved by the ICIAM Officers.
4. The ICIAM funds are expected to be used to fund a number of ICIAM Fellowships for selected delegates from underdeveloped countries and regions.
5. The selection of the ICIAM Fellowship recipients and the determination of their level of support will be the responsibility of the conference organizers.
6. The existence of the ICIAM Fellowships should be advertised under that name on the conference web site, and the support of ICIAM acknowledged in an appropriate way on that web site and in printed materials for the conference.
7. Within six months of the end of the Conference a report should be submitted to the ICIAM Secretary, secretary@iciam.org. The report should briefly describe the scientific achievements of the conference, list the recipients of the ICIAM Fellowships and where they travelled from, and indicate the funds expended through each ICIAM Fellowship.
8. Unexpended funds must be returned to the ICIAM Treasurer.
9. Other things being equal, preference will be given to conferences held in developing countries.

Please send proposals for ICIAM conference support to the secretary (secretary@iciam.org) by no later than April 30, 2024.

Quaestiones Mathematicae: Open access publishing agreement

Quaestiones Mathematicae is part of the Read & Publish Transformative Open Access agreement that was made recently between Taylor & Francis and the consortium of Southern African institutions that are united in SANLiC, which included nearly all South African Universities (see the list here). The arrangement is for three years, and applies to papers with original research published in 2024, 2025 or 2026, for which the corresponding author is associated with one of the member institutions of SANLiC. For qualifying papers that have been published in 2024 already, please contact a library representative from your institution, to arrange that your paper will be made available in open access format.

For the announcement made by SANLiC, including further details on the arrangement, please see:

https://sanlic.ac.za/south-african-national-library-consortium-signs-a-groundbreaking-transformational-agreement-with-taylor-francis

If you publish a paper in Quaestiones Mathematicae that qualifies for the arrangement, or have published one already in 2024, please make sure it will be published in open access format. This will greatly enhance the accessibility of your work.