A message from the president // Brief words from the editor-in-chief

The ninth European Congress of Mathematics (9ECM) in Seville is a few weeks away, and I am excited to meet many of you there. We will be celebrating mathematics and mathematicians.

Just before the congress, the European Mathematical Society is organizing its council in Granada. This is an important event for the EMS. The council is the governing body of the EMS and it has delegates representing all the national member societies as well as delegates representing individual members. This will be my first council as president of the EMS, and I am looking forward to meeting the delegates and to discussing the future directions of the EMS.

Over the years, the EMS has increased its activities and its engagement with the European mathematical community. Our ten standing committees are deeply involved with many issues of great importance to individual mathematicians and to the mathematical community as a whole. The committees oversee research, education, outreach, applications and interdisciplinarity, diversity, ethics, publishing, and equity within mathematics in Europe and beyond. The EMS is deeply committed to the publishing and dissemination through the EMS Press and our involvement with zbMATH open. We have engaged with the early career segment of the community through the establishment of the European Mathematical Society Young Academy (EMYA). The EMS offers many grant opportunities for travel grants and conference support and many other sponsored activities. We celebrate great achievements in mathematics with our many prizes. We will present a number of these at the 9ECM. The last council approved the formation of EMS Topical Activity Groups (TAGs) that foster collaboration within specific mathematical topics across Europe. Currently, we have six active TAGs. The EMS had also previously issued a call for larger-scale activities – the EMS Strategic Activities – but did not fund any. We decided to pause this initiative temporarily while we consider the correct level of funding and structure of the Strategic Activities program.

It is fantastic to see how EMS has increased its level of activities. I cannot personally take much credit for this but should thank many of the previous presidents and EMS councils for having had the vision to help bring the EMS to where it is today. I do think, however, that we need to rethink the way we are going to organize the EMS as a truly professional organization. We need professional support to structure the way we interact with our membership and the society in general. We have therefore decided to create a role of a community manager for both the EMS and EMS Press. I hope soon to introduce you to this new person.

As many of you know, our social media presence and more general news announcements have hitherto been taken care of by our publicity officer Richard Elwes. Richard has done this with great success. It has been a tremendous amount of work, and I am embarrassed to say he has had to do it in his spare time. It was partly seeing what we asked of Richard that made me realize we cannot expect this to be done only con amore. Richard’s term as publicity officer is coming to an end just before the congress. It is not possible to thank Richard enough for all the work he has put into the EMS. He has probably done more for the visibility of the EMS than anyone else in the organization. After Richard’s term is up, we will not appoint a new publicity officer. Instead, the work of the publicity officer will now be with the new community manager.

I have already mentioned in my previous message that the term of Fernando Manuel Pestana da Costa, the editor-in-chief of the magazine you are currently reading, will also end. In fact, this is the last issue under his editorship. I want to thank Fernando for all his hard work with the Magazine and I know that all of you reading this are joining me in thanking Fernando. While saying goodbye to Fernando, we should also welcome our new editor-in-chief, Professor Donatella Donatelli from Università degli Studi dell’Aquila. I am very much looking forward to working with her.

Wishing you all a great summer and hoping to see many of you in Seville in a few weeks.

Jan Philip Solovej

President of the EMS

Dear Reader of the EMS Magazine,

With the issue that you are now reading my four-year term as editor-in-chief comes to an end. It has been a great honour to serve the European mathematical community in the editorial board of the Newsletter/Magazine for the last seven and half years (before being editor-in-chief I had been editor responsible for the section “Societies”) and some words of thanks are in order: first, to the previous editor-in-chief, Valentin Zagrebnov, and the former EMS president, Volker Mehrmann, for having believed I could take care of the job; and to the current EMS president, Jan Philip Solovej, for his continuing trust and support. Thanks are also due to the staff of EMS Press (past and present) whose professional competence and the always-ready and friendly help has been incredibly important in having the job done with a minimal hassle: in particular I would like to name Apostolos Damialis, Sylvia Fellman, Simon Winter, Theresa Haney, and Vanessa Haazipolo. Finally, but by no means less important, my gratitude goes to all my colleagues in the editorial team, without whom an editor-in-chief can do little…

In these last four years several changes took place in our journal, some of a more superficial nature like the change of name from Newsletter to Magazine, the change in design, and the use of colour, others of a deeper character; of these I would like to point out just one: in the natural renewal of the editorial team it has been possible to increase the female participation from just under 7% to slightly over 31%, thus attaining a gender balance in the editorial committee that mirrors the percentage of overall female participation in the mathematical community as a whole.

Some ideas and projects were not possible (or I was not able) to implement, and there are always things that could have been done better. But overall it has been four fantastic and incredibly exciting years during which I could get a much clearer view of the European mathematics community and I had the privilege of working with, and getting to know, some fantastic people.

It is now time to get back to my sole role as reader of the Magazine: from the September issue onwards the editor-in-chief will be Donatella Donatelli, a colleague of the current editorial team that has done an incredible job in revitalizing the “Book Reviews” section and, I am sure, will do an even better work in the next four years at the head of our Magazine.

To you, the reader, I trust that you will continue to support the EMS and our Magazine for many years to come.

Fernando Pestana da Costa

Editor-in-chief