Report on BMC 2010

Maths2010: Joint meeting of British Mathematical Colloquium & British Applied Mathematics Colloquium Edinburgh, 6-9 April, 2010

Report September 1, 2010


A joint meeting of the British Mathematical Colloquium and the British Applied Mathematics Colloquium was held in Edinburgh during the week 6-9 April, 2010. The structure and organisation of the meeting were modelled on the very successful previous joint meeting, in Liverpool in 2005.

Conference details
A total of 518 registered participants (and a small number of gatecrashers) enjoyed a full programme of lectures and social events. Plenary lectures were given by
  • Emmanuel Candes (Stanford)
  • Rich Kerswell (Bristol)
  • Robert MacKay (Warwick)
  • L Mahadevan (Harvard)
  • Maciej Zworski (Berkeley)
These were complemented by a full BAMC programme of principal speakers, contributed talks and minisymposia, in parallel with a full BMC programme of principal speakers, morning speakers, splinter groups, and special sessions in
  • Algebraic Geometry
  • Dynamical Systems
  • Spectral Theory
In addition, a very successful public lecture (also advertised as an event in the Edinburgh Science Festival) on mathematical finance was given by Paul Embrechts of ETH Zürich, and a satellite event for schoolchildren entitled Meet the Mathematicians was held at the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
(The latter is a regular feature of BAMCs, and is supported by an EPSRC grant.)

Throughout the meeting there was a publishers book display in the concourse of the Appleton Tower, where most of the lectures were held. Participating publishers were
  • American Mathematical Society
  • Cambridge University Press
  • London Mathematical Society
  • Oxford University Press
  • Springer
  • Taylor & Francis
Social events included a ceilidh for young researchers, the ever-popular publishers wine reception hosted by CUP and Springer, and a conference dinner at Our Dynamic Earth - a popular venue in Hollyrood Park near the Scottish Parliament Building.
Logistical and Administrative support for the meeting was provided by the International
Centre for Mathematical Sciences.

Financial Summary
Edinburgh is an attractive but relatively expensive conference venue. We were fortunate to receive substantial grant income from a variety of sources. Support for the meeting was kindly provided by:
  • The London Mathematical Society
  • The Institute for Mathematics and its Applications
  • The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
  • The Edinburgh Mathematical Society
  • The Glasgow Mathematical Journal Trust
  • The Institute of Physics
  • The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
  • The Stewartson Fund
  • The Centre for Analysis and Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations
  • The Centre for Numerical Algorithms and Intelligent Software
Nevertheless, the conference made a net deficit of around £1,000 on a turnover in the region of £100,000. The deficit has been recovered from the BAMC reserve fund.

A summary of income and expenditure is given below:

Income

Fees(1) £72,101
Grants £27,450
Total £99,551

Expenditure
Accommodation(2) £67,840.20
Speakers' expenses(3) £8,918.22
Delegate packs £2,893.04
Dinner & Ceilidh £20,897.77
Total £100,549.23

(1) includes registration fees, conference dinner payments, accommodation charges, and publishers' display charges.
(2) is a consolidated charge which includes all lecturing facilities as well as sleeping accommodation.
(3) includes plenary speakers, main BMC and BAMC speakers, and BMC special session speakers.