13 March 2021

EMS Digest, Nr.38

Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel & Richard Elwes

Default EMS image for news.

EMS Digest (formerly e-news) 38, March 2021

EDITORIAL

Dear EMS members, With this editorial I would like to give you some updates about the EMS over the last months. Let me start with the bad news first.

Due the pandemic, the EMS's 30th anniversary celebration which had already been postponed to this spring had to be postponed again.

For the European Congress (8ECM) it has been decided that the congress will be held in a completely virtual way. More details below and at www.8ecm.si/news/82.

Also the planned joint congress of AMS-EMS-SMF in Grenoble has been postponed to 2022. It will take place right after the ICM to create synergies and to avoid too much extra international travel.

As you can see, we are struggling through the pandemic, but there are also many positive pieces of news.

After many problems with hacking and data protection regulations, the EMS is pleased to unveil a completely new internet platform at www.euromathsoc.org. This coincides with a rebranding and a new logo for the EMS. (The new site will be reachable via the old web address https://euro-math-soc.eu/ though at time of writing these redirects are not yet in place.)

Our publishing house EMS Press has moved to the subscribe-to-open model and was successful in obtaining enough subscriptions for all ten EMS journals to be turned open for the year 2021. More details here.

Zentralblatt Mathematics (zbmath) is also now open access. See www.zbmath.org/. We hope that you will strongly support zbmath by using it a lot, and contributing reviews.

Last but not least, our colleagues from the Raising Public Awareness (RPA) Committee have launched a new web-portal Pop Math, see www.popmath.eu. Pop Math is a calendar and map that of all mathematical outreach events in Europe and beyond. Anyone can submit an event via www.popmath.eu/submit-event. Please, give it a try and share this message.

I wish you all the best for the coming months and hope that we arrive at a more normal situation soon.

Best, Volker Mehrmann

HEADLINES

The International Day of Maths The UNESCO International Day of Mathemtics is Sunday 14th March! See below and online.

The 8th European Congress of Mathematics (8ECM) – new update!

  • After months of planning and careful consideration, the EMS Executive Committee and the organizers of 8ECM have decided that all lectures, including Public, Plenary, Invited and Prize lectures, as well as Minisymposia and Special Sessions, planned for Portorož (Slovenia) 20 – 26 June 2021, are moved online. More details at www.8ecm.si/news/82.

  • Calls to organize a Minisymposium (MS) and/or a Satellite Conference (SC) are extended! There are over 60 accepted MS so far and incentives for MS and SC organizers are offered. MS and SC already confirmed by the Local Scientific Committee and published on the 8ECM website do not need to reapply. The deadline for applications is 31 March 2021. To find out more about the Open calls and to apply, please visit the 8ECM website: Call for Minisymposia and Call for Satellite Conferences

  • Registrations to participate at the 8ECM are still open, visit our website to register! Follow #8ecm on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

POP MATHS

  • An online calendar and map of mathematical outreach activities is now online at POP MATH. This is the work of the EMS's committee for Raising Public Awareness of Matheatics (see below).

EMS MAGAZINE

  • The first edition of tne newly renamed EMS Magazine (formerly EMS Newsletter) latest edition of the EMS Newsletter (N119-March 2021) will be online shortly here. More details below.

NEWS FROM EMS CORPORATE MEMBERS

French Mathematical Society (SMF)

  • Aline Bonami (Emeritus professor at Université d'Orléans and former SMF president) received the Bergman Prize.

  • Michel Waldschmidt (Emeritus professor at Sorbonne Université and former SMF president) received the Russell Prize.

  • SMF opened a YouTube channel where videos of the SMF cycles of conferences on popularization of mathematics can be watched.

  • The SMF is very active on Human Rights, especially these last months due to many critical situations concerning colleagues in different countries. More details here.

SMAI (Société de Mathématiques Appliquées et Industrielles, France)

  • After the success of the transition of their journal "Mathematical Modelling of Natural Phenomena" to Diamond Open Access in 2020, SMAI and its partner the publisher EDP Sciences, have extended their "Subscribe to Open" program to all SMAI & EDP Sciences journals in 2021. Under this collaborative publication model (also used by EMS Press), libraries are invited to subscribe to journals, in order them open to everyone without resorting to Author Publication Charges. More details

IHES (Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, France)

  • Laure Saint-Raymond becomes the first female permanent professor at IHES. Laure’s work, focusing on the asymptotic analysis of systems of partial differential equations, in particular those governing the dynamics of gases, plasmas or fluids, will broaden the IHES research areas. She is an outstanding French mathematician who was elected member of the French Academy of Sciences in 2013, then member of the Academia Europaea in 2014, and then in 2017, member of the European Academy of Sciences. More details.

IHP (Institut Henri Poincaré, France)

Irish Mathematical Society

  • The 2020 Annual Conference of the Society was postponed to January 2021 and held online. The conference was organized by Brien Nolan and Niamh O'Sullivan of Dublin City University. A number of the talks were linked by the theme of epidemiological and environmental modelling. The conference slides are now available online.

  • The latest issue of the Society's Bulletin (Winter 2020) is available online.

Italian Mathematical Union (UMI)

  • Online voting for the election of the new Board and Scientific Committee of the UMI will begin on March 14th 2021 and until May 26th 2021.

CIM (Centro International de Mathamtica, Portugal)

  • The annual CIM Colloquium takes place before the council of the CIM Associates. This year a lecture was delivered online by Gabriela Gomes (Strathclyde) on February 26. Title: Individual variation in susceptibility or exposure to SARS-CoV-2 lowers the herd immunity threshold. Abstract and video

Mathematical Institute of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (MISANU)

  • MISANU hosted, on 17 February 2021, the National Stakeholders event on Gender Equality in Research, as a part of the LeTSGEPs Horizon 2020 project in which MISANU is one of the Consortium partners. The main focuses were Gender Equality Plans and Gender Budgeting in Science and Innovation. It was attended by over 80 participants, including the Rector of the University of Belgrade, the Assistant Minister for Science, the Director of the UN Women Serbia Office, the Director of MISANU, the LeTSGEPs project coordinator, prof.Tindara Addabbo, the LETSGEPS Project Leader for Serbia, and representatives of over 40 research institutions in Serbia.

Royal Spanish Mathematical Society (RSME)

  • Call for Nominations for Awards Vicent Caselles. Nominations for the Mathematics Research Awards Vicent Caselles RSME-BBVA 2021 of the RSME and BBVA Foundation will be open until March 1st, 2:00PM (CET). The prizes are intended for young mathematicians (of any nationality) who carried out their research in a Spanish institution. (Nominees should be younger than 30 on the 31st December 2020 with their Ph.D. defense in 2018-2020. For exceptions, and more details, see here.

  • Joint Meeting SMM-RSME, 14-18 June 2021. A joint meeting of the RSME and the Sociedad Matemática Mexicana will take place on 14-18 June 2021 online

  • Honorary members of the RSME. The Real Sociedad Matemática Española elected Alessio Figally, Kristin Lauter, Bernard Teissier and Karen Uhlenbeck to Honorary Membership of the RSME in 2021. More details.

Spanish Society of Applied Mathematics (SeMA)

  • SeMA has a new president: Manuel J. Castro Díaz, since December 2020.Manuel Castro is full professor at the Universidad de Málaga (Spain). He was awarded the 2008 ECCOMAS J. L. Lions Award for Young Scientists and the 2018 NVidia Global Impact Award for the high impact to society of contributions in tsunami modeling.

  • The XIX Spanish-French School Jacques-Louis Lions on Numerical Simulation in Physics and Engineering (EHF2021) will be held in Cercedilla (Madrid), from August 30 to September 3, 2021. The school has been organized every two years since 1984, and connects professionals, researchers and students interested in physical or industrial applications of mathematics and numerical methods. This edition will pay tribute to the scientific trajectory of Prof. Amable Liñán. More details.

  • The XXVI CEDYA / XVI CMA. Registrations reopened. After the decision to postpone the biennial SeMA conference, to be held in Gijón (Spain), until 14-18 June 2021, the local organizers have reopened the resgitration process. Online participation is also possible. More deatils

Institut Mittag-Leffler (IML) (Sweden)

  • Call for research programs 2023. The IML hosts semester-long programs to promote mathematical research and networking. Leading scientists and postdoctoral researchers in an area of mathematics are invited to the institute to collaborate. The selection criteria for proposals are scientific strength and timeliness, and the degree to which the program would benefit mathematical research and post graduate training, in particular in the Nordic countries. More details. The deadline for proposals is March 31, 2021. The 2023 research programs will be announced in May 2021. Inquiries may be directed to administration{at}mittag-leffler.se

  • Call for conferences 2022. The IML hosts week-long conferences and workshops in all areas of mathematics at the current research frontier. The IML announces a call for proposals of conferences, workshops, and summer schools in June and July 2022. More details. Deadline for proposals: August 15, 2021. The 2022 conferences will be announced in September 2021. Inquiries may be directed to administration{at}mittag-leffler.se

London Mathematical Society (LMS)

  • Professor Ulrike Tillman FRS, LMS President designate, has been appointed the next Director of the Isaac Newton Institute. (See next item.)

  • The Atiyah UK–Lebanon Fellowships were set up in 2019 as a lasting memorial to Sir Michael Atiyah (1929–2019) in the form of a two-way visiting programme for mathematicians between the UK and Lebanon, where Sir Michael had strong ties. The Atiyah Fellowship for the academic year 2021–22 has been awarded to Professor Maciej Dunajski (Cambridge University).

  • Thanks to the continued generosity of the Liber Foundation, the LMS will again award a number of Emmy Noether Fellowships in 2021, up to a total of £25,000. More information and how to apply is available online. The application deadline is Friday 30 April 2021.

Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Siences (INI)

  • A £10m increase in its primary grant funding will double INI’s annual income from its principal research funder for at least the next five years. This will allow three, as opposed to two, major research programmes to be run in tandem locally, improvements and upgrading of its facilities in Cambridge, and ambitious new satellite activity around the UK. It will also bring with it the launch of numerous initiatives designed to foster new academic communities and grow international partnerships.

  • Professor Ulrike Tillmann (Oxford) will be the next Director of INI, from 1 October 2021. She is described by current Director David Abrahams as “an internationally renowned mathematician with extensive experience of leadership roles in mathematics”. She will be the seventh Director since the Institute opened in 1992, following Sir Michael Atiyah, Prof. Keith Moffatt, Sir John Kingman, Sir David Wallace, Prof. John Toland and current Director Professor David Abrahams. For the first two years of her five-year term she will also hold the Presidency of the London Mathematical Society (see previous item).

  • The disruption of 2020 forced postponement of five scheduled programmes, but stimulated much virtual activity for the INI’s knowledge exchange arm, the Newton Gateway. It also led, within weeks of the UK’s first lockdown, to the creation of the virtual, seven-month “Infectious Dynamics of Pandemics” programme (May-December 2020), which directly informed urgent public health policy conversations throughout the year, and for which three participants were awarded OBEs.

  • The Institute welcomes contact and collaborations from the mathematical community. More details.

International Centre for Mathematical Sciences (ICMS), Edinburgh

  • The International Centre for Mathematical Sciences has received a large increase in its funding. The ICMS has been awarded an additional £5million for the next five years to expand and enhance its activities. Full details can be found here.

  • The ICMS has been searching for full-time Director. The deadline for applications closed on 21st February and an announcement will be made in due course. More details

European Society for Mathematical and Theoretical Biology (ESMTB)

  • The ESMTB has renewed its board and officers. As of January 2021, Prof. Ellen Baake (Bielefeld) is president, Prof. Jose Carrillo (Oxford) vice president, and Prof. Silvia Cuadrado (Barcelona) is secretary, Prof. Benoit Perthame (Paris) is the EMS liaison officer. Dr. Bob Planque (Amsterdam) continues in his role as treasurer. The other members of the board are Dr. Maira Aguiar (Bilbao), Dr. Ludek Berec (Budweis), Prof. Tom Britton (Stockholm), Prof. Elisenda Feliu (Copenhagen), and Prof. Angelique Stephanou (Grenoble).

European Women in Mathematics Society (EWM)

  • Her Maths Story – Portraying women mathematicians in all walks of life. Joana Grah, Julia Kross and Tamara Grossmann – three women mathematicians –created Her Maths Story to showcase the variety of career routes women have taken at different stages of their lives. Her Maths Story just launched its website and you can find them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. If you want to share your own story or know someone who might – contact hermathsstory{at}gmail.com. (If you are a senior teacher or researcher please share this with your colleagues and students.)

  • Panel Discussion on Gender Balance. EWM and MATH+ organized a panel discussion on gender balance in connection with the movie "Picture a Scientist". The discussion took place on March 11 and started with a 30-min talk by K. Clancy on sexual harassment (and more generally gender gap), followed by a panel discussion involving her as well as Ingrid Daubechies, Carola-Bibiane Schönlieb, Bernd Sturmfels, and Andrea Walther.

NEWS FROM EMS COMMITTEES

See the website for a list of the EMS' standing committees and their roles.

Committee for Developing Countries (CDC) Donate to the CDC! The CDC has an important mission in supporting mathematics research and education in developing countries. You can make your donation together with your EMS membership fees, or directly to the CDC bank account: EMS-CDC, IBAN: FI78 1572 30003811 60, SWIFT/BIC NDEAFIHH (It is not currently possible to donate via the website due to ongoing technical problems, see editorial above. However this functionality is expected to be restored soon on the new website.)

Meetings Committee Due to covid, the meeting committee had only a few applications, most of them very valuable. The chair and several members of the comittee will be renewed this year. The calls for proposals for EMS activities in 2022 can be found on the webpage. Deadline: September 30, 2021.

Raising Public Awareness Committee (RPA) The RPA Committee announces opening of the website Pop Math, an online map and calendar of all math outreach events in Europe and beyond. Anybody can submit an event from this page. Please give it a try!

Women in Maths Committee (WiM) The WiM Committee welcomes Shiri Artstein as new member of the EMS/WiM Committee and Jiří Rákosník as the liaison officer with the EMS Executive Committee.

The WiM Committee warmly thanks Lisbeth Fajstrup for her many ideas, and invaluable help while she was member of the WiM Committee. Deep thanks also to Sjoerd Verduyn Lunel for having constantly supported the work of the WiM Committee as outgoing liaison officer.

EMS MAGAZINE The latest edition of the EMS Magazine (N119-March 2021), and the first since it has been renamed from the Newsletter, will be online shortly here.

Highlights include:

  • The geometric theorems of Almada Negreiros (Art & Maths)
  • New frontiers in Langlands reciprocity (by 2020 EMS Prize inner)
  • Geometry and dynamics on Riemann and K3 surfaces (by 2020 EMS Prize winner)
  • All roads come from China – For a theoretical approach to the history of - mathematics (by 2020 Otto Neugebauer Prize winner)
  • Surface evolution of elastically stressed films
  • Young mathematicians online
  • The Croatian Mathematical Society
  • Plus content on math education, zbMath, book reviews, and solved and unsolved problems, and lots more...

EMS PRESS

Recent book: Geometry and Topology of Surfaces by Sebastian Baader (Universität Bern, Switzerland) Zurich Lectures in Advanced Mathematics, March 2021

For more information about our new-look Publishing House, see www.ems.press.

SOCIAL MEDIA Keep up with the EMS on Facebook and on Twitter.

MISCELLANEA

Abel Prize The 2021 Abel Prize will be announced on 17th March. The announcement can be watched live at www.abelprize.no/.

International Day of Mathematics 2021 (IDM 2021) The UNESCO International Day of Mathematics is March 14th. The theme for 2021 is "Mathematics for a Better World". Explore the theme at www.betterworld.idm314.org

  • The new map of events is online at http://www.idm314.org and you are invited to post your events.
  • Activities with the public and classroom activities are now posted online in several languages.
  • Live coverage of celebrations around the world will be organized on March 14.
  • A virtual event will take place on March 14 from 14:00 to 17:00 UTC, whichwill be accessible through the website. The first hour will be in English, the second in French and the third in Spanish.