Season’s Greetings!

Dear colleagues, friends, authors and readers of ECMI blog,

The year 2020 is coming to an end. This has been a challenging year for each individual, but also for ECMI as a whole.

Like many of you, we quickly had to find ways of adapting to the new reality. Shortly after the COVID-19 outbreak, ECMI turned its activities on-line instead. We organised webinars and a virtual Modelling Week, we launched a special issue of Journal of Mathematics in Industry devoted to collecting articles related to the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, we promoted a student competition among other activities that you may find on the report by our Director, Poul Hjorth, in the ICIAM Dianoia Newsletter.

These have been difficult times and the recent news about the evolution of the pandemic in Europe does not give hope that the situation will improve in the immediate future. All the plans for physical meetings in 2020 and the first semester of 2021 are affected, in particular the ECMI conference in Limerick. After considerable deliberation, the ECMI Council decided to go for a pure on-line conference that will take place from April 13th to April 15th 2021. This was not an easy decision, but we are confident that it will be an excellent event. The Scientific Committee has put together again a high quality, well balanced, scientific programme and the Local Organising Committee in Wuppertal has done amazing work in preparing the programme. All information is available on the conference website. Registration is open! Please note that students from ECMI 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). The deadline for applications is the 15th March 2021 and the information is available on the ECMI conference webpage.

This is my last message as ECMI President before Nataša Kreji took office. I would like to take the opportunity to thank her and all the other members of the Executive Committee for their support over the past three years, as well as Alessandra Michelleti for accepting to be Vice President of ECMI for the next term. I am sure that the new Executive Committee will bring a new energy to ECMI and let us all looking forward to a new and bright future.

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 2021!

Adérito Araújo
ECMI President