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Scientific Committee Minutes for September 2019
British Mathematical Colloquium Scientific Committee Minutes of the meeting of 20 September 2019
Mary Cartwright Room, De Morgan House, 2–4pm
Mary Cartwright Room, De Morgan House, 2–4pm
- Welcome, confirmation of membership
Chair:
Phil Rippon (Open) until 31 May 2020.
LMS representatives:
Maud De Visscher (City) until 31 May 2020 (attending via Skype). Constanze Roitzheim (Kent) until 31 May 2020.
EdMS representatives:
Sophie Huczynska (St Andrews) until 31 May 2020.
Michael Wemyss (Glasgow) until 31 May 2020 (attending via Skype).
Lancaster (2019):
Jan Grabowski, Tony Nixon.
Glasgow (2020):
Michael Wemyss.
KCL (2021):
David Burns.
Representative of the 2019 BMC:
Carl-Fredrik Nyberg Brodda (UEA) until September 2019.
Ex officio:
Fiona Nixon (Executive Secretary of the LMS), Elizabeth Fisher (LMS) or Ben Lloyd (LMS).
- Apologies for absence
Sophie Huczynska, Jan Grabowski.
- Chair's report
The main purpose of the meeting is to review this year's BMC at Lancaster and to receive reports on preparations for Glasgow in 2020 and to discuss the plans for KCL in 2021.
- Minutes of Scientific Committee meeting at Lancaster on 10 April 2019
The minutes were confirmed with no matters arising.
- Minutes of AGM at St Andrews on 10 April 2019
The minutes were confirmed with no matters arising.
- Academic and Financial Report on the BMC at Lancaster 8-11 April 2019
A copy of the report on the Lancaster BMC to the LMS was received. It was noted that there were approximately 130 attendees, and the members of the Committee were pleased to see a close to even balance of male and female speakers.
Tony Nixon observed that there were not as many mainstream academics at this BMC as historically, though there were a good number of PhD students (about one fifth), which was seen as a healthy sign.
The Committee members who had attended agreed that BMC 2019 had been a very successful meeting with a high standard of plenary and morning talks (fourteen in all). In particular, Carl- Fredrik Nyberg Brodda, the BMC 2019 representative, agreed that the speakers delivered good talks, and made a suggestion concerning the distribution of abstracts of talks.
Positive comments were also made about the afternoon subject-specific workshops, of which there were six, including one in conjunction with Algebra and Representation Theory in the North (ARTIN) and another on Mathematics Education which involved a discussion panel, and about the public lecture by Dr Vicky Neale, which attracted about 75 people, and also about the session of speed talks by PhD students.
There was a brief discussion of the various way in which LMS Scheme 3 groups can relate to BMC workshops, with some groups able to make good use of this opportunity.
- Update on plans for BMC/BAMC in Glasgow 6-9 April 2020
The plenary speakers will be: Ciprian Manolescu (UCLA), Catharina Stroppel (Bonn), Bernd Sturmfels (Berkeley), Sarah Waters (Oxford).
The BMC morning speakers will be: Mark Gross (Cambridge), Heather Harrington (Oxford), Lotte Hollands (Heriot-Watt), Ailsa Keating (Cambridge), John Keating (Bristol), Minhyong Kim (Oxford), Xin Li (QMUL), Nathalie Wahl (Copenhagen).
A public lecture will be given by: Moon Duchin (Tufts).
There will be nine workshop areas in pure mathematics: Algebra and Representation The- ory, Mathematical Physics, Number Theory, Topology, Operator Algebras, Algebraic Geometry, Combinatorics, Group Theory, Analysis.
In addition to LMS funding, the Clay Institute will cover the expenses of international plenary speakers, PhD students and ECRs.
The joint conference website has been open since April 2019 and there have been 80 registra- tions so far. The conference fee is £150. The numbers expected to attend are 400–700 and it is hoped that at least 500 will do so.
- Plans for BMC in KCL 2021
KCL agreed to host the BMC 2021 in autumn 2018 with David Burns to organise. Since then he has been joined by Simon Salamon and Steve Gilmour as organising committee. It became clear in summer 2019 that room booking at KCL is potentially problematic, with early reservation of rooms not possible, which raised some concerns. Some time after the meeting (in February 2020) this room booking problem was solved by a decision to hold the 2021 BMC in June rather than April, and a discussion took place with the Chair about the number of rooms that are likely to be needed. In particular, the later date has made it possible to book excellent rooms in Bush House.
- Future BMCs
The Chair reported on ongoing discussions about a possible location of the BMC beyond 2021. Not long after the meeting (in late October) it was confirmed that Bath will hold the BMC in 2022 and Manchester will hold the BMC in 2023.
- Other meetings
It was reported that the YRM (Young Researchers in Mathematics) 2020 meeting was not yet arranged. Later it was learnt that a virtual YRM was held by the University of Nottingham in June 2020.
- Any other business
The Chair expressed thanks for their contributions to the retiring members of the Committee.
- Date of next meeting (at Glasgow BMC/BAMC)
To be arranged.
- Post-meeting update from the Chair - major developments in 2020
As a result of the emerging Covid-19 crisis, it was decided in mid-March (before the start of the national Covid-19 lockdown) that the 2020 BMC/BAMC in Glasgow could not go ahead.
Fortunately, however, the organisers were able to postpone the joint conference for a year, after negotiating with Glasgow University management to do so on reasonable terms. This change was agreed in advance by KCL and, soon after this, discussions with KCL, Bath and Manchester led to the following BMC rearrangements: 2021 Glasgow, 2022 KCL, 2023 Bath, 2024 Manchester.
As a consequence of the postponement, there was no meeting of the Committee in April 2020, and no BMC AGM took place.
Finally, in early 2020 the Search Team recommended that Sarah Rees (Newcastle University) be nominated as Chair of BMC Scientific Committee with effect from 1 June 2020. After an email consultation, the Committee was very happy to approve this nomination. The outgoing Chair is grateful to Sarah for accepting this position and for her support during the urgent postponement discussions that took place in March 2020.