Scientific Committee Meeting: April 2007

AGENDA


Meeting of the Scientific Committee of the BMC to be held in the Reading Room of the Mathematics Department, University of Swansea, on 18 April and 19 April 2007.

The meeting is in TWO parts. First part Wednesday 18.15 - 19.00 in the Reading Room of the Mathematics Department. Second part Thursday 13.00.


[Item 9 (Galway 2009) will be taken at the Wednesday meeting along with some other items]
  1. Apologies.
    Rachel Camina
  2. Confirmation of membership of the committee. Appointment of secretary.
    [The secretary should be one of the representatives from York.]
    [New committee is from 1 June 2006]
    [Need new LMS representative to replace Rachel Camina who is a member until 31 May 2007. Charles Goldie will handle this]
    [Need new EdMS representative to replace Rob Archbold who is a member until 31 May 2007. Tony Gilbert (EdMS secretary) will put on the agenda for the next meeting]
    [Edinburgh representatives officially come on the committee from 1 June 2006]
    [Someone should have been elected at the AGM at BMC 2007 to replace Tony O'Farrell to serve for one year from date of election]
  3. Minutes of meeting in De Morgan House on 20 September 2006; matters arising not covered elsewhere.
  4. Chairman
    [We need to put forward a name to the BMC AGM in York in 2008 for a new chairman of the BMC Scientific Committee. We therefore need to confirm a name at our September 2007 meeting in De Morgan House. I will propose that we set up a small "search committee" to come up with a name. I will propose Garth Dales and Rob Curtis to form the search committee (both have indicated they are prepared to serve on the search committee.]
  5. Joint BAMC/BMC meeting in 20010.
    [The AGM should have accepted the invitation from Edinburgh. Chris Howls (Chair BAMC) has suggested that he and I should "visit and meet the local organising committee and discuss the structure, programme and organisation of the meeting."]
  6. Report on 2011 hosts.
    [Chairman will report.]
  7. Brief report on the Swansea meeting.
    [A full report will be on the agenda for the September 2007 meeting. One Swansea representative will remain on the committee to give this report]
  8. Plans for York 2008
    [York will report on the current position regarding the plenary speakers. We may be asked to suggest UK based speakers]
    [To follow the usual pattern York will pick out about 4 areas of mathematics that they wish to concentrate on - with one or two singletons in, for example, history of mathematics, and to circulate in advance a few names in these areas.]
  9. Plans for Galway 2009
    [Plenary speakers; special sessions]
  10. Any other business
  11. Date of next meeting 19 September 2007 in De Morgan House.
    [I have been advised that bookings in De Morgan House have to made now for September. I am trying to book 19 September in the hope that it will suit as many as possible. It is the corresponding date to the 2006 September meeting.]

MINUTES


Minutes of the Scientific Committee of the BMC held in the Mathematics Seminar Room, University of Swansea, from 13.00--14.00 on Thursday 19 April, 2007.

Present:
Rob Archbold, Garth Dales, Charles Goldie, Iain Gordon, Niels Jacob, Eugene Lytvanov, Edmund Robertson (Chair), James Ward, Chris Wood (Scribe).
  1. Apologies: Rachel Camina.
  2. The election of Tony Mann to the committee was noted, and the appointment of new LMS/EMS representatives observed to be in hand. Attendance of the LMS Executive Secretary (currently Peter Cooper) at future meetings was deemed desirable.
  3. Minutes of the September 2006 meeting were approved.
  4. The formation of a search subcommittee (Garth Dales, Rob Curtis) for a new Chair, aiming for ratification at the York 2008 meeting, was noted.
  5. The Chair confirmed that the 2010 BMC/BAMC joint meeting is to be hosted by the Maxwell Institute, Edinburgh. It was suggested that subcommittees of the BMC and BAMC scientific meetings should meet to discuss matters of mutual interest. Expertise gained from the 2005 Liverpool meeting should also be sought. An early application (September 2007) to the LMS would be appropriate for a meeting of this scale.
  6. Chair announced that BMC 2011 is to be hosted by the University of Leicester, under the auspices of John Hunton.
  7. Preliminary feedback from Swansea BMC 2007: 288 participants, 120 talks, financial parity, and no serious complaints!
  8. Arrangements for York BMC 2008 were reported.
    Plenary speakers: Richard Hamilton (Columbia), Anthony Joseph (Weizmann Institute), Gregory Margulis (Yale), Stanislav Smirnov (Geneva).
    Public lecturer: Chris Budd (Bath).
    Morning speakers: Anton Cox (City), John Cremona (Warwick), Patrick Dorey (Durham), Ben Green (Cambridge), Dominic Joyce (Oxford), Raphael Rouquier (Oxford), Jonathan Sherratt (Herriot Watt), Caterina Stroppel (Glasgow), Peter Symonds (Manchester), Franco Vivaldi (Queen Mary), Michael Weiss (Aberdeen).
    Special sessions: Number Theory, Differential Geometry and Geometric Analysis.

    The following suggestions were discussed:
    1. The public lecture to be publicized to local schools, newspapers, and the Yorkshire Mathematical Association.
    2. A History of Maths lecture to be given as a general morning lecture, possibly related to the 125-th anniversary of the EMS.
    3. Unfilled slots for morning lectures could be offered to Gwyneth Stallard (Open), Nina Snaith (Bristol), or Lars Olsen (St Andrews). Topics which could be better represented include Random Matrices, and Functional Analysis.
    4. Brian Davies to be approached concerning a discussion meeting on the forthcoming LMS/IMA merger. Other possibilities were a LMS/EMS/CMS panel meeting on funding opportunities (possibly involving David Wallace, CMS Chair), an EPSRC presentation, and an ACME discussion meeting.
    5. In future, the meeting of the Scientific Committee should ideally be held during rather than immediately after the BMC meeting.
  9. Date of next meeting:
    September 19, 2007. Venue: De Morgan House.

BMC SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE 2007-8

Chair:
Edmund Robertson (St Andrews) - until 31 May 2008 edmund@mcs.st-and.ac.uk

LMS:
Rachel Camina (Cambridge) - until 31 May 2007 R.D.Camina@dpmms.cam.ac.uk
Garth Dales (Leeds) - until 31 May 2008 garth@maths.leeds.ac.uk
Charles Goldie (Sussex) - until 31 May 2009 c.m.goldie@sussex.ac.uk

EdMS:
Rob Archbold (Aberdeen) - until 31 May 2007 r.archbold@maths.abdn.ac.uk
Iain Gordon (Edinburgh) - until 31 May 2008 igordon@ed.ac.uk
Swansea:
Francis Clark F.Clarke@swansea.ac.uk
Niels Jacob N.Jacob@swansea.ac.uk
York:
Steve Donkin sd510@york.ac.uk
Maurice Dodson mmd1@york.ac.uk
Chris Wood cmw4@york.ac.uk
Galway:
Ted Hurley ted.hurley@nuigalway.ie
James Ward james.ward@nuigalway.ie
Edinburgh:
Jim Howie J.Howie@ma.hw.ac.uk

BMC AGM Representative:
Tony Mann (Greenwich) A.Mann@gre.ac.uk