Vol.
25 No. 2
March - April 2003
Canadian
Participation in IUPAC
The National
Research Council Canada is currently organizing and preparing
for the 39th IUPAC Congress and 86th Conference of the Canadian
Society for Chemistry (CSC), to be held in Ottawa, Ontario,
from 10-15 August 2003. LActualité
chimique candienneCanadian Chemical
News (ACCN) asked Professor B. R. Henry, currently chair
of the Canadian National Committee (CNC) for IUPAC and scientific
program chair for the 2003 IUPAC/CSC Congress, to summarize
for their (mostly Canadian) readers the activities of the
CNC within IUPAC. For the CI reader or the IUPAC community
at large, the following excerpt from that article offers an
inside look at Canadian participation, but also a description
of our forthcoming and welcoming host in Ottawa.
by
Bryan R. Henry
In
Canada, our National Adhering Organization (NAO) is the National
Research Council (NRC). Canadian participation in IUPAC is
facilitated by the Canadian National Committee for IUPAC (CNC-IUPAC).
This committee, which is drawn from NRC, academia, and industry,
acts as an interface between IUPAC and the Canadian chemical
community. It is also responsible for nominating Canadians
to serve on the various IUPAC committees, and represents Canada
every two years at the IUPAC General Assembly. CNC-IUPAC also
administers an awards program that is funded in part by Canadian
Company Associates. This program helps young Canadian chemists
and chemical engineers present papers at IUPAC-sponsored conferences
outside of continental North America. They also participate
in other activities such as a current project which aims at
collecting used chemistry books and providing them to developing
countries.
Canada
has always enjoyed a high profile within IUPAC. Bill Schneider,
past president of NRC, served as IUPAC president some years
ago. Currently, Nelson Wright is chair of the Committee on
Chemistry and Industry, Tom Tidwell is the president of the
Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry Division, John W. Lorimer
is the chair of the Project Committee, and Peter Mahaffy is
the chair of the Subcommittee on the Public Understanding
of Chemistry. These individuals and a number of others including
Douglas Stephan, Murray Moo-Young, and Gerald Stephenson serve
on the various divisional committees.
One
of the most tangible reasons to celebrate Canadian participation
in IUPAC is the upcoming IUPAC/CSC Congress in Ottawa. Planning
for this Congress began in 1995 with discussions between CSC,
IUPAC, and NRC. These three parties ultimately reached an
agreement setting out the conditions for a joint CSC-IUPAC
conference. The bid was presented by CNC-IUPAC at the 1999
IUPAC meeting in Berlin and accepted by the Council.
CSC
has agreed to change the dates of its annual conference to
permit a single major chemical conference in August 2003.
The Congress will be somewhat larger than our regular meeting
and broader in scope. Special symposia are planned to celebrate
the 50th anniversary of the solution of DNA and the opening
of the Canadian Light Source in 2004. There will be a special
symposium on the Public Understanding of Chemistry and another
on Green Chemistry. In addition there is an especially strong
set of divisional and interdivisional symposia devoted to
forefront science. In all, 51 symposia are scheduled in 144
sessions. Each day will begin with an invited plenary lecture
delivered by Professors Polanyi, Fréchet, and Smalley,
respectively, and by the winners of the Chemical Institute
of Canada Medal and the Montréal Medal.
We
expect 2500 participants with about 800 oral presentations
and 1200 posters. The preliminary program has been published
and details are available at the conference Web site <www.iupac2003.org>.
Scientific sessions will be held at the Westin Hotel and the
Ottawa Congress Centre. Thanks to support from a number of
organizations including IUPAC, we will be able to assist the
attendance of younger scientists both from developed and economically
disadvantaged counties. The Canadian chemical industry and
a number of other donors have provided generous sponsorship
exceeding $CAN 150 000.
2003
Ottawa promises to be an outstanding conference at which we
can showcase Canadian chemistry on an international stage.
Reproduced
from ACCN, February 2003 issue.
Bryan
Henry <[email protected]>
is Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada and a professor
in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University
of Guelph, Ontario. His research field is laser spectroscopy
and theoretical chemistry. He is a past president of the CSC,
a past chair of the CIC, and the 2001 winner of the Montreal
Medal. He is currently chair of CNC-IUPAC and scientific program
chair for the 2003 IUPAC/CSC Congress.
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