Season’s Greetings!
Dear colleagues, friends, authors and readers of ECMI blog,
Another year is coming to an end. Again, ECMI has been involved in many activities and in different ways.
COST Action TD1409, Maths for Industry Network, initiated supported by ECMI, reached its end in April 2019 and it has been a huge success: 12 training weeks; 21 industry workshops; 24 industry days; 46 countries involved; 51 research visits; 100 companies and more than 2000 participants. The dissemination conference took place in Bath (UK), last April, during the British Applied Mathematics Colloquium 2019. The COST Action webpage provides the access to all the reports and handbooks produced.
The educational activities are one of the main pillars of ECMI. This year, ECMI Educational Committee organised two Modelling Weeks for Master Students, one in Darmstadt in February-March, and one in Grenoble in July. This year ECMI also promoted the First ECMI Postgraduate Modelling Week, that took place in July, in Sevilla, and that was mainly addressed for PhD students. This Modelling Week was a satellite event of ICIAM 2019 and it was an excellent opportunity for our PhD students to be associated with this big event. Speaking about the ICIAM 2019 meeting in Valencia, it is worth mentioning that we had a strong presence in the ICIAM 2019 meeting in Valencia. In addition to the various mini-symposia in which we were all involved, ECMI was one of the co-organisers of the so-called “The Industry Day“, a mathematical technology transfer oriented activity that took place during the meeting.
To finish the snapshot of our activities in 2019, I remember that since the beginning of the year, ECMI has a new agreement with Springer for the Open-Access ECMI Journal for Mathematics with Industry. Within this new agreement, all the researchers affiliated with a ECMI institution have now the possibility to publish in our journal for free.
With full commitment, we are now planning our activities for next year. We are very much looking forward to welcoming you all to the 21st ECMI conference, which will take place in Limerick, Ireland, from 22-26 June 2020. I am sure it will be an excellent memorable event and a great opportunity to strengthen collaborations between researchers and companies, promoting innovation and enhancing industry-academia relations at the international level. The list of invited speakers and other relevant information are now available at the ECMI2020 webpage. Registrations are open!
I must also point out that students from ECMI member institutions who have completed a mathematical thesis on an industrial topic are eligible to apply for the Wacker Prize (MSc) or the Anile Prize (PhD). To apply for, or put forward a candidate for these prizes, a copy of the PhD thesis (written in English), together with a letter supporting the application, should be sent as PDF-File to ecmi2020@ul.ie before 15 April, 2020. Both prizes will be given in the Award Ceremony of ECMI 2020 after the opening of the conference.
I encourage you to continue following our blog, to support ECMI activities and to contact us with new ideas and initiatives. Our consortium needs young people and can help them to unfold and amplify their projects. Diversity is a point of strength of Europe and ECMI is willing to stimulate collaborative initiatives among the various nodes.
Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season and a very successful and happy New Year!
Adérito Araújo
ECMI President