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Scientific Committee Minutes for June 2022

British Mathematical Colloquium Scientific Committee Minutes for the meeting of Tuesday 8th June, 1830–1900, at KCL BMC.

  1. Attendance, and apologies :
    Chair: Sarah Rees (Newcastle)
    LMS rep: Richard Thomas (Imperial)
    KCL 2022: David Burns (KCL)
    Ex officio: Caroline Wallace (LMS executive secretary).
    The meeting was held in room S5.20 in the Strand Building, with Richard Thomas attending via zoom, but others attenders in person.
    Karin Baur (LMS rep), Sophie Huczynska (EMS rep) and Elizabeth Fisher (LMS) were unable to attend, and sent apologies.

  2. Minutes of last Scientific Committee meeting by zoom on 16th September 2021 had been circulated were approved.

  3. Immediate impressions of the 2022 BMC
    David Burns gave a brief report, and will give a fuller account at the September meeting.

    More than 250 had registered for this BMC, not all attending every day. But attendance was good; there had been more than 70 attenders in one of the number theory workshop talks. We were now halfway through the meeting, and it seemed to be going very well. There was excellent attendance by graduate students. Unfortunately many of the large number of female graduate students at Kings were currently absent at an event for Women in Number Theory. But nonetheless there was good attendance by women, with women represented in good numbers as (excellent) speakers.

    The speakers had generally been excellent, and had been very cooperative in following the briefs they had been given, understanding what was expected of them. Speakers had dealt very well with the uncertainty caused by the pandemic.

    Great (and successful) effort had been made to ensure accessibility of all facilities and appropriate catering. Caroline Wallace commended on the LMS policies to make catering appropriate and diverse.

    At this stage it was hard to comment on the finances of the meeting. But that side seemed to be working out OK.

  4. Bath BMC Kirill Cherednichenko reported on arrangements so far for the next BMC, which will be held in Bath, 3rd to 6th April 2023. He had already presented a similar report at the AGM, without giving out inappropriate financial details.

    There is a website at https://sites.google.com/view/bmc-2023/ The registration page is currently being constructed, and is expected to open for registration towards the end of the summer. There will be a registration free of 100 pounds, with early bird registration set at 75 pounds, for those registering before the end of November. There will be match funding support for up to 20 PhD students.

    The lectures will be run in six sections: algebra, analysis, geometry, probability, number theory, and outreach (which includes mathematical education), each of those six including a plenary talk. The public lecture, given by Katie Steckles (Sheffield Hallam), would be the 'Outreach' plenary, and the five other plenaries would be given by Tim Browning, Pavel Etinghof, Galina Perelman, Jeremy Quastel and Katrin Wendland; Tim Browning's lecture would be billed as the LMS lecture. There would be 12 morning speakers, two within each section, and workshops in each of the six sections. Workshop talks would each be of 30 minute duration, with only two held simultaneously.

    The LMS meeting and the conference dinner would be on the Tuesday, with the dinner held at the Bath Pump room. There would be a poster reception on the Wednesday evening. Posters would be displayed throughout the four day event, and prizes would be awarded for the best posters.
    Funding of 15K pounds has been awarded by the LMS, 10K by Heilbronn, two amounts of 5K each by Bath Faculty of Science, and Bath Institute for Innovation. Other sponsors included the Applied Probability Trust (2K) and Springer Nature (which would provide book vouchers as prizes for posters).

    Kirill was thanked for his presentation. David Burns commented that he seemed well ahead with his planning; Kirill responded that he aimed to be slow and steady.

  5. Future BMCs We have agreed on the hosts for BMCs in 2024 – 2026, with Manchester hosting it in 2024 (led by Charles Eaton), Exeter in 2025 (led by Mark Holland; this will be a joint BMC/BAMC event), and (tentatively) Newcastle in 2026.

  6. Date of next meeting This will be arranged over email for October, and will be held over zoom.

  7. Any other business Caroline Wallace would be leaving the committee, with her role on it taken up by her successor as executive secretary (whose appointment will be announced soon). It is expected that he will be in post by the time of the next committee meeting in October; for an interim period, Caroline's position will be filled by Fiona Nixon.

    Caroline was thanked for her contribution to the committee. There was no further business.
Sarah Rees 8th June 2022