Scientific Committee Meeting: April 2005

AGENDA


Meeting in Liverpool, Thursday 7 April, 2005
  1. Confirmation of membership of the committee. Appointment of a secretary.

    [The secretary should be one of the two representatives of Newcastle. Future membership of the Committee: From 1 June 2005 until 31 May 2008, an LMS nominee will be H. G. Dales (Leeds); we may need a new nominee of the EMS for the period 1 June 2005 until 31 May 2008 (dates to be verified).]
  2. Minutes of the meeting at De Morgan House, 30 September, 2004, and matters arising that are not covered elsewhere.
  3. Chair of the Scientific Committee.

    [To note the appointment of a Chair from 1 June 2005 to 31 May 2008; to note any change of the constitution determined by the AGM.]
  4. Meetings in 2007 and 2008.

    [To note the decision of the AGM in respect of these meetings; report from the Chairman on the search for hosts.]
  5. Brief report from Liverpool on the meeting in 2005.

    [A full report should be given at the meeting in September, 2005.]
  6. Discussion of the status of joint meetings with the BAMC, and how this will be moved forward.

    [Tentatively we have agreed that a subset of our Committee will meet with representatives of the BAMC to discuss this in September, 2005. The new Chairman of our Committee should decide how this is to be moved forward, and who will be our representatives.]
  7. Discussion of the plans for Newcastle in 2006.

    [The main task is to draw up a list of potential UK-based speakers- Newcastle have provided suggestions of some names, and seek more suggestions; my own suggestion is that they seek one morning speaker in history/philosophy/political areas - or an area of applications such as financial mathematics. Please prepare your own suggestions in advance of the meeting.]
  8. Discussion of the plans for Swansea in 2007.

BMC Scientific Committee Membership

Chair:
H Garth Dales (Leeds) - until 31 May 2005

One person to be elected at the AGM in Liverpool - until the end of the AGM in Newcastle.

Nominees of the London Mathematical Society
Helen Robinson (Coventry) - until 31 May 2005
Caroline Series (Warwick) - until 31 May 2006
Rachael Camina (Cambridge) - until 31 May 2007

Nominees of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society
Edmund Robertson (St Andrews) - until 31 May 2006
Rob Archbold (Aberdeen) - until 31 May 2007

Representatives of Liverpool 2005
Peter Giblin - until 31 May 2005
Hugh Morton - until 31 May 2005

[One of the above to continue, to report at the meeting in London, September 2005.]

Representatives of Newcastle 2006
Zina Lykova - until 31 May 2006
Nicolas Young - until 31 May 2006
[Temporarily replaced by Michael White and Oliver King.]
[One of the above to continue, to report at the meeting in London, September 2006.] Representatives of Swansea 2007
Francis Clarke - until 31 May 2007
Niels Jacob - until 31 May 2007
[One of the above to continue, to report at the meeting in London, September 2007.]

In attendance:
Peter Cooper (LMS)
MINUTES


Minutes of the BMC Scientific Committee held at the University of Liverpool at 1 pm on 7 April 2005.

Present:
Garth Dales (Chair),
LMS:
Helen Robinson (Coventry), Caroline Series (Warwick), Rachel Camina (Cambridge)
EdMS:
Edmund Robertson (St Andrews), Rob Archbold (Aberdeen)
Liverpool:
Peter Giblin and Hugh Morton
Newcastle:
Michael White, Oli King (standing in for Zinaida Lykova and Nicholas Young)
Swansea:
Francis Clark, Niels Jacob
BMC AGM Representative:
David Chillingworth (Southampton)
  1. The chair welcomed new members of the committee. Michael White (Newcastle) was appointed Secretary.
  2. The minutes of the meeting in De Morgan House on 30 September 2004 were approved.
    Matters arising:
    Item 1: It was noted that a representative of the Edinburgh Math. Soc. will need to be renewed or replaced.
    Item 3: The Chair has discussed the issue of full economic costings with the LMS, who confirmed that they will pay neither "wages" nor room charges.
    Item 7: The Chair has had discussions with colleagues at Maynooth in the Republic of Ireland about the possibility of holding a BMC in Ireland in 2008. This idea was strongly supported by the Irish Mathematical Society and by the local hosts. Further, the LMS had confirmed that, in principal, they would fund a BMC in Ireland on the same basis as a meeting in the UK (save that their support for graduate students would be restricted to UK-based students); the local hosts would have to apply for funds in the usual way.
    However the plan collapsed because the administration of Maynooth were not able to guarantee the availability of rooms that do exist on their campus. The Irish Mathematical Society and colleagues in Ireland are eager to have further consultation on possible future meetings in the Republic of Ireland in due course.
  3. The new rules adopted at the AGM for the period of tenure of the Chair were noted and Edmund Robertson (St Andrews) was welcomed as the incoming Chair, with effect from 1 June 2005. In future the Chair of the Scientific Committee will serve for 3 years from 1 June.
  4. It was noted that, following decisions at the AGM, the meeting in 2007 will be at Swansea and the 2008 meeting will be at York.
  5. Report on the Meeting at Liverpool.
    A provisional budget for the meeting was presented which indicated the event was running a slight surplus, but some items had still not been accounted for. In particular the Maths Department had underwritten several costs which the BMC/BAMC can now pay itself. Attendance had been high at 525, and the best guess was that this split as 305 BAMC and 220 BMC, but people were not asked to which group they belong.
  6. Future Joint Meeting with the BAMC.
    It was noted that the BAMC has now formed a scientific committee which will make future discussion about joint meetings easier. There will be a meeting of some members of each scientific committee to discuss future joint meetings in September 2005. It will be impossible to hold any joint meeting before 2009. A 2009 joint meeting might be at Oxford, which by then could have a new Mathematical Institute. It was provisionally agreed that this was acceptable, but future AGMs should approve the decision. It was noted that perhaps small departments might find it easier to host joint meetings, as the organisation could be spread over more people. One problem with joint meetings was felt to be the different format of talks, with both the BMC and BAMC preferring to keep their own mixture of morning/plenary/splinter talks. There will be a meeting of representatives of the BMC Scientific Committee and of the new BAMC Committee on 20 September 2005. The BMC representatives at this meeting will be Edmund Robertson, Garth Dales, and Caroline Series and perhaps one of the Liverpool organizers.
  7. Report on Plans for the Newcastle 2006 BMC.
    Oli King reported that the format would follow the usual BMC pattern, as at Belfast/Birmingham; there would be 4 or 5 plenary speakers. There was uncertainty about the health of one speaker and the status of the "confirmation" of another. It was noted the Maths Department will probably have moved to better accommodation before the BMC. The rooms to be used are near the new location. Discussion then moved onto the names of the morning speakers. There are 16 slots and 16 names were suggested by Newcastle. It was felt that the names covered too wide an area and that there should be an attempt to cover fewer fields. After discussion several more names were added strengthening certain areas, while other names were removed, as they might better suit a different BMC meeting. There was also a suggestion that a single lecture on the History, Philosophy or Sociology of Mathematics might prove popular, after the success of the History of Mathematics talks at Liverpool.
  8. Report on Plans for the Swansea 2007 BMC.
    There was an impressive list of plenary speakers, some of whom had already agreed to come, which the committee approved. There will be Special Sessions on Topology and Classical Harmonic Analysis.
  9. BMC Archives.
    The Chair is still working on a complete list of previous speakers to the BMC, which will include the institution (at that time). The incoming Chair, Edmund Robertson (St Andrews), suggested that this information should be put of the St. Andrews History of Mathematics website. This idea was welcomed.
  10. The Chair thanked the retiring members of the committee for their work and the committee as a whole thanked the retiring Chair (Garth Dales) for all his hard work and energy.
  11. The date of the next meeting was set to be 21 September 2005.
The meeting closed at 4pm.

Minutes signed by Michael White on 5 May 2005.
BMC SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE 2005

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
Caroline Series (Warwick) - until 31 May 2006 cms@maths.warwick.ac.uk

EdMS:
Rob Archbold (Aberdeen) - until 31 May 2007 r.archbold@maths.abdn.ac.uk
Iain Gordon (Glasgow) - until 31 May 2008 i.gordon@maths.gla.ac.uk

Newcastle:
Andrew Duncan a.duncan@newcastle.ac.uk
Zinaida Lykova Z.A.Lykova@newcastle.ac.uk
Michael White michael.white@newcastle.ac.uk

Swansea:
Francis Clark F.Clarke@swansea.ac.uk
Niels Jacob N.Jacob@swansea.ac.uk

York:
Maurice Dodson mmd1@york.ac.uk
Chris Wood cmw4@york.ac.uk

BMC AGM Representative:
David Chillingworth (Southampton) d.r.j.chillingworth@maths.soton.ac.uk