Words of Welcome
Juan Viaño Rey
Rector of the University of Santiago de Compostela
Distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning everybody. Welcome to Santiago de Compostela and welcome to the 19th European Conference on Mathematics and Industry (ECMI 2016). Let me introduce myself. My name is Juan Viaño, and as you probably know I am mathematician and colleague of several participants and members of organizing committee on this congress ECMI 2006. Now I am the actual rector of the University of Santiago de Compostela. Therefore, for me it is a great honour and a great pleasure to be here, having the opportunity to host in our university and to lead the open ceremony of ECMI 2016, one of the most important events concerning the applied and industrial mathematics. For us, for our University, for our faculty of Mathematics today is an historical day.
Let me introduce the distinguished persons composing this head table:
- Manuel Varela Rey, Director of Galician Agency for Innovation,
- Dietmar Hömberg, President of ECMI,
- Alfredo Bermúdez de Castro, President of Scientific Committee
- Peregrina Quintela, President of Organizing Committee,
For closing this ceremony, let me address you a few final remarks. As you are all probably aware of, the industrial mathematics is a very important subject nowadays as it deals with transforming technical, organizational and economic problems posed by industry into mathematical problems. Industrial mathematicians are considered bridge-builders; they build bridges from the field of mathematics to the practical world.
ECMI Conferences, promoted by European Consortium for Mathematics in Industry, enforce the interaction between academy and industry, leading to innovation in both fields. They are one of the main forums where significant advances in industrial mathematics are presented, bringing together prominent figures from business, science and academia to promote the use of innovative mathematics to industry. These meetings encourage industrial sectors to propose challenging problems where mathematicians can provide new ideas.
The interest created with ECMI2016 in the international community is clear. The conference has attracted more than 350 participants from 40 countries. I am sure that the selected topics will provide you with a wealth of information and many opportunities from discussion.
I want to congratulate the scientific committee and the organizing committee for their efficient work. Our university is proud of our Faculty of Mathematics (one of the most valued of Spain) and in particular we are proud of the work and results of the groups of industrial mathematics, organizing this conference jointly with the Network Math-in. For all of them, I want to express my gratitude for their work and congratulations for their success.
The challenges faced by this conference are very important, but I am confident that you will succeed in your objectives. I wish you a very pleasant stay in Santiago and a productive and succesful meeting.
I declare ECMI 2016 open.
Peregrina Quintela
ECMI 2016 Organising Committee, Chair
Dear Rector of Universidade de Santiago de Compostela,
dear Director of the Innovation Galician Agency of the Galician Government,
dear ECMI President,
dear Chair of the Scientific Committee,
dear Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen
On behalf of the Organizing Committee, I am very pleased to welcome you all to ECMI 2016, the 19th edition of the European Conference on Mathematics for Industry. This 19th edition is jointly organized by the Department of Applied Mathematics of the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela and the Spanish Network for Mathematics & Industry. It has been an honour for both institutions to be chosen to co-host this event, and what we will offer this week to you is the result of work done in the last two years.
These conferences are organized to reinforce the interaction between academy and industry, and to encourage to industrial sectors to propose challenging problems, where mathematicians can provide insight and new ideas. This is an international conference, and the exchange of information, ideas and experiences, which will occur during this week, will help us to learn from the successes of the past, and to open new research lines from the new challenges proposed therein.
ECMI 2016 scientific program consists of 10 plenary talks by some of the leading researchers in industrial mathematics, 39 mini symposia and 19 sessions of contributed talks. In short, we will have more than 300 presentations, distributed along 5 days, with 8 parallel sessions per day. In these presentations, there are involved, directly or indirectly, about 50 companies that, in one way or another, have funded the research presented to meet their specific demands.
I welcome the attending at the Conference of so many representatives of industries, technological centers and institutions that have already incorporated mathematical solutions to modelize, simulate or optimize their processes or products, in the management of their resources, or in their job planning. We thank them for trusting in mathematicians to strengthen their research and innovation. I take this opportunity to recall that in order to facilitate this academic-industry interaction, the European Consortium for Mathematics in Industry in collaboration with the European Mathematical Society have launched a European stop shop, the European Service Network of Mathematics for Industry and Innovation, to provide an agile access to the most advanced mathematical techniques to companies.
In this 19th edition a wide variety of applications will be presented, ranging from problems in Electronics (15%), Energy and Environment (14%), Mechanics and Mechatronics (12%), among economic sectors with the highest number of talks. When the classification of the talks on the societal challenges of the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation H2020 is observed, a 14% of them belong to the challenge Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials; 13% to the Health, demographic change and wellbeing; while a 12% belong to the Europe in a changing world-inclusive, innovative and reflective societies. These percentages show clearly that Mathematics is a cross-cutting technology through all industrial sectors and all Societal Challenges.
Special mention must be made to the dissemination event The mathematical way to the Oscars, which will feature the participation of an invited speaker of this Conference and two representatives from companies, familiar with the use of mathematical technology in movies production.
The conference program also pays special attention to establishing discussion forums in various fields, such as mathematics in the H2020 programme; Master’s programmes related with Industrial Mathematics; or the Study Groups as a tool for dissemination and promotion of mathematical technology.
In this edition, we have more than 350 participants from about 40 countries. Although of course the majority are from Europe, with representation from 26 European countries, there is also representation from Australia, America, Africa and Asia. The Spanish participation is the largest, representing 25% of the total, closely followed by German with a 20%. All these indicators allow us to conclude that ECMI conferences are the main European forum of industrial mathematics.
ECMI 2016 received generous support from the ECMI; the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela; the Spanish Network for Mathematics & Industry; the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness; the Naval Research Office of United States of America; the Thematic Network of Mathematics & Industry; the Technological Institute of Industrial Mathematics; and the Galician Network of Industrial Mathematics funded by the Xunta de Galicia. We also have had the collaboration of several institutions or companies like GDI, Iberia, Renfe, Springer, Xacobeo Galicia, and Santiago Turismo. We would like to thank all of them; their support has contributed to the success of this event and was crucial allowing many young researchers to participate.
The Organizing Committee wish to thank all participants for their contributions and attendance, without whom there would have been no conference. Special thanks to the Scientific Committee; the invited speakers; the organizers of special sessions; and the chairs and assistants of the different sessions.
Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to Elisa, Fe, Manuel, and Carlos, for their strong technical assistance to the Organizing Committee. Furthermore, we would like to thank the Faculties of Biology and Mathematics, which provided us with spaces for this conference.
We hope that you will find this 19th edition of ECMI interesting, stimulating and a great experience altogether and enjoy your stay in Santiago de Compostela.
Dietmar Hömberg
ECMI President
Dear Colleagues,
One of the privileges as ECMI president is the opportunity to say a few words of welcome on the occasion of ECMI conferences. And I am particularly happy to be allowed to do this here, at the University of Santiago de Compostela. It is like Industrial Mathematics is coming home: More than 30 years ago, Alfredo Bermudez de Castro started to build up a new group in Engineering Mathematics making it a renowned place for industrial and applied mathematics in Europe.
He also managed to attract further talented mathematicians dedicated to application of mathematics in industry, among them Peregrina Quintela Estevez, the president of the organizing committee of this conference. Peregrina is also President and driving force of MATH-IN, the Spanish Network for Mathematics & Industry, founded about 5 years ago. It is fair to say that this became the role model for many other European national networks, who are connected in the European Service Network of Mathematics for Industry and Innovation, or short EU-MATHS-IN under the auspices of the European Mathematical Society and ECMI.
Please allow me to add a few words about ECMI. For further information on ECMI please take a look at our new annual report and leaflet, which you can find in the conference bag.
Our activities rest on three pillars: education; research and innovation; and outreach. Indeed, when in 1987 colleagues from seven European universities founded ECMI, one of the first activities was to set-up a joint post graduate program in which industrial problem solving was a key topic. Today, the ECMI Educational Committee oversees more than 20 high-standard master programs in industrial and econo-mathematics. Together with modeling weeks and summer schools they form the backbone of our educational activities.
European study groups with industry and Special Interest Groups are at the heart of ECMI’s activities in research and Innovation. The latter bring together mathematicians from academia and industry to facilitate collaborative research in industrial and applied mathematics and to foster involvement with European Funding programs. European Study Groups with Industry started with the first study group in Oxford in the sixties of the last century. Now there are 5-7 meetings held annually in different European countries.
The third pillar of ECMI activities is Outreach. In collaboration with Springer, ECMI publishes a book series and an open access journal on Mathematics for Industry. As a service to the community, ECMI has established a new blog providing up-to-date information on workshops, projects, positions and opportunities in industrial and applied mathematics.
Perhaps the outreach events with highest visibility are the biennial European Conferences on Mathematics for Industry. After the last and extremely successful conference in Taormina in 2014 I have to say that I have no doubts that the 19th conference starting today will at least match the success of the last one. As we have heard already, Peregrina and her team have set up an exciting mixture of events complemented by a varied social program. My wife and I already look forward to the Saturday excursion on the Pilgrim’s way to Santiago.
I would like to express my congratulations and gratitude to Peregrina and her team for their excellent work in preparing the 19th ECMI conference. And I wish all of you an exciting week, stimulating presentations and discussions, meeting old friends and hopefully also finding new ones.