BMC Scientific Committee June 2025

British Mathematical Colloquium Scientific Committee
Minutes of the meeting on Wednesday 25th June 2025,
1235-1330 BST in hybrid format, in Peter Chalk Centre, Room 1.3,
University of Exeter and on Zoom

Introductions All members of the Committee were present. The meet-
ing was additionally joined by Murat Akman (Essex), Ed Brambley
(Warwick) and Susana Gomes (Warwick).
The minutes of last Scientific Committee meeting held online on
26th September 2024 were approved.
Matters arising:

• Manchester BMC Public Lecture: the delayed public lecture as-
sociated with the Manchester BMC took place in March 2025, at
the end of a two day undergraduate event (Manchester Interdis-
ciplinary Undergraduate Conference). There was an enthusiastic
undergraduate audience, with some members of the public too,
numbering around 70 in total. Katie Steckles gave an excellent
talk on "Maths' Greatest Unsolved Puzzles", where she gave a
great insight into the maths research process.
Report on the 2025 BMC-BAMC in Exeter.
Mark Holland gave a verbal report, including the following points:
• The organisation consisted of a team of four core organisers, with
input on specific aspects (e.g. workshops, mini-symposia) from
around fifteen further colleagues.
• Funding was gratefully received and acknowledged from the LMS,
HIMR, Clay and CUP. Details on finances will be included in the
post-event report to the autumn 2026 meeting of the Committee.
• There were a number of additional elements of the programme,
beyond the traditional BMC and BAMC formats, including four
satellite events taking place after the conference.
• The public lecture held on Tuesday 24th June was well attended
(c.200 attendees) and well received.
• In total, 500 participants registered, of whom around 420 paid
the registration fee, the remainder being funded by the external
funding. It was estimated that there were around 200 academics
and 200 PhD students, with an approximately 1:2 split between
those likely to principally identify as BMC and BAMC partici-
pants respectively.
• In response to a question, it was confirmed that detailed statistics
on participants—notably gender—will be provided to the autumn
meeting. It was noted that a good gender balance had been
achieved among speakers chosen by the organisers (not including
the contributed talks, essentially all of which had been accepted).
Committee members commended the organisation of the meeting and
spoke positively about the spaces used by the conference. Mark and
all Exeter colleagues involved were congratulated and thanked for all
their hard work, leading to a very successful meeting up to this point.
Update on plans for Cardiff 2026 to be held 30th March–2nd April
2026 [Since the previous meeting, the dates for Cardiff had been adjusted by one week, for
logistical reasons.]

Timothy Logvinenko reported that Cardiff has confirmed its list of
plenary speakers:
• Cristiana de Filippis (Parma)
• Dennis Gaitsgory (Bonn)
• Mikhail Kapranov (IPMU, Tokyo)
• Yoshiko Ogata (RIMS, Kyoto)
• Nike Sun (MIT)
• Peter Vajru (Cambridge)
The public lecture will be given by Jens Marklof (Bristol).
The workshops will be in Algebra, Geometry, Analysis, Partial Dif-
ferential Equations, Mathematical Physics, Probability and Outreach.
Organisers for these have been identified and several are expected to
be run in conjunction with discipline-oriented national networks such
as COW.
The website will go online in a couple of weeks and the registration
will open. The early bird and graduate student rate will be £120 and
the standard fee £150.
Cardiff have been awarded LMS and Heilbronn funding and will immi-
nently apply for funding for the plenary speakers from Clay, now that
the line-up is complete. They are now ready to proceed with inviting
the morning speakers.
Future BMCs with updates and discussion on future hosts.
Birmingham 2027:
An update on progress was given by Simon Goodwin. Namely,
the initial organising group expects to confirm the make-up of
the Scientific and Organising Committees shortly, to fix the dates
(currently planned to be the week of 19th April 2027) and to make
approaches to the initial group of plenary speakers.
Essex 2028:
Murat Akman confirmed Essex's desire to host in 2028, having
achieved institutional support from the Head of School, Faculty
and senior leadership. A commitment has been made of resource
(workload adjustment) for the Chair of the local organisers and
the local infrastructure needed has been identified. An Away
Day in the autumn will be used to identify the organising team,
themes for workshops, suggestions for speakers etc. The School's
person responsible for EDI will be integrated into the organisa-
tional structure from the start. Noting that Essex is changing
its academic calendar prior to 2028, dates will be considered but
only provisionally, until there is clarity on the new calendar.
The Committee were asked to affirm support for Essex as the
2028 host and this was given unanimously. Essex were therefore
invited to proceed with preparations and bookings and Murat
Akman will join the Scientific Committee from this point on.
Warwick 2030:
Ed Brambley and Susana Gomes presented a proposal for War-
wick to host the next joint BMC-BAMC in 2030, having presented
similarly to the BAMC committee meeting earlier in the week.
Dates in early April were indicated as being the preferred choice
and the Committee were shown the proposed location, based
mainly in the Oculus (a dedicated teaching and learning space
with large and smaller lecture theatres) along with some parts
taking place in the Zeeman Building, to ensure connection with
the department. There is an initial organising committee in place,
which will expand later: Ed Brambley (applied, chair), Adam
Thomas (pure, deputy chair), Susana Gomes (applied, treasurer)
and Saul Schleimer (pure, secretary).
The meeting would be run through Warwick Conferences, using
their expertise with events at this scale. A projected registra-
tion fee was discussed by the Committee, noting that—as usual
with joint events—this is higher than has historically been typi-
cal for BMCs, even allowing for inflation. The Warwick team are
very conscious of this and are actively seeking as much additional
funding and sponsorship as possible, looking to supplement the
much appreciated continued support provided by the LMS and
others.
The Committee were also asked to affirm support for Warwick
in 2030 as the hosts of a joint BMC-BAMC and this was unani-
mously supported. The Chair had spoken to his counterpart for
the BAMC and was pleased to therefore confirm to the Warwick
team that they have the support of both committees to proceed.
The guidance for organisers will be sent to them shortly (see item
7) and Ed Brambley was invited to join the Scientific Committee
from now on.
Date of next committee meeting online in September 2025; exact
date to be confirmed.
Any other business
Simon Edwards requested to have the opportunity to review the Guid-
ance document, to ensure it reflects recent best practice, especially in
respect of the relationship with the LMS, as the BMC's principal fun-
der. The Chair agreed that this would be a useful exercise and agreed
to liaise with Simon. When this has been done, the updated version
will be circulated to Committee members, in particular the Essex and
Warwick members.

Jan Grabowski
27th June 2025