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BMC Scientific Committee September 2025

British Mathematical Colloquium Scientific Committee
Minutes of the meeting on Wednesday 24th September 2025,
1000-1130 BST on Zoom.



  1. Introductions

    Present: Jan Grabowski (Chair), Murat Akman (Essex), Ed Bramb- ley (Warwick), Simon Edwards (LMS), Elizabeth Fisher (LMS), Mark Holland (Exeter), Sophie Huczynska (St Andrew's, EMS rep), Gandhar Joshi (Open, BMC-BAMC 2025 participant rep), Timothy Logvinenko (Cardiff), Jason Lotay (Oxford, LMS rep), Jes´us Martinez-Garcia (Essex,LMS rep), Chris Parker (Birming- ham)

    Apologies Simon Goodwin (Birmingham), Adam Thomas (Warwick)

  2. Minutes of last Scientific Committee meeting
    held at the Exeter BMC-BAMC on 25th June 2025 were approved.

  3. Report on the 2025 BMC-BAMC in Exeter.

    A written report was submitted by Mark Holland and is reproduced below. Mark summarised the report, having positive feedback from participants and the Committee. Mark provided some approximate attendance numbers for the different activities also. More detailed information on the budget was requested and will be circulated confi- dentially to the Committee following the meeting.

    The ECR event co-organised with the IMA was noted as having been particularly popular; feedback from participants of this highlighted that they would have preferred it not to be scheduled against the other social activity, which some would have also liked to attend. There was a discussion on ECR particpation, with general support for ensuring that BMCs are welcoming of and providing opportunities to ECRs. It was recognised that the different cultures of BMCs and BAMCs mean that Exeter was a little different from BMCs that are not joint meetings (e.g. the proportion of PhD students was rather higher than would be expected at a BMC) but that we should continue to look at successful activities and consider whether they could be incorporated into future events.

    The Committee also reflected on the process of deciding on workshop topics and the relative merits and constraints of these being driven by local research strength versus providing a broad range of workshops to attract attendees. There was a helpful discussion, concluding that 1organisers would be advised to look at having non-local workshop organisers work alongside local ones, to help keep topics and invitations broad in appeal.

    The BMC-BAMC 2025 participant representative gave their personal feedback and was thanked for having volunteered to contribute to the meeting.

    The Chair, on behalf of the Committee, thanked Mark and the BMC-BAMC 2025 organising team for their efforts and congratulated them on a very successful joint meeting.

    Action: Mark Holland to provide budget details to the Committee.

  4. Update on plans for Cardiff BMC
    to be held 30th March-2nd April 2026.

    Timothy Logvinenko gave a verbal report, confirming the dates, that all plenary speaker slots had been filled and that funding applications were submitted (and in two cases, approved). The remaining tasks were about to begin, with the main current focus being on making the website live in October, with registration to open as soon as possible afterwards.

    There was a useful discussion about mechanisms for publicising BMCs. The HoDoMS mailing list was mentioned, along with the LMS's dis- semination mechanisms. The possibility of a BMC mailing list, similar to the BAMC one, was mooted and logistical and legal challenges noted, but the Chair agreed to contact the BAMC Committee to find out how theirs operates and report back at the next meeting.

    Action: Chair to contact BAMC re mailing list.

  5. Future BMCs Updates from future hosts.

    Birmingham 2027

    Chris Parker reported on behalf of Birmingham that they have chosen dates of Monday 19th to Thursday 22nd April 2027. They have an Organising and a Scientific Committee in place and have invited some plenary speakers. They plan to submit their LMS application imminently, having chosen their workshop topics.

    Essex 2028

    Murat Akman reported that a department-wide meeting had been held recently, leading to the identification of an organising team comprising:
    • Murat Akman (Chair) • Jesús Martinez-Garcia (Secretary)
    • Stella Hadjiantoni (Treasurer)
    • Sema Güntürkùn (EDI Lead)
    with supporting members Chris Antonopoulos, Joe Bailey and Georgi Grahovski.

    That discussion also agreed workshop topics:
    • Geometry (Jesús Martinez-Garcia)
    • Analysis (Murat Akman)
    • Dynamical Systems (Chris Antonopoulos and Zoe Bartlett)
    • The Mathematics of Text Mining (Stella Hadjiantoni)
    • Mathematical Physics (George Papamikos and Georgi Grahovski)
    • Group Theory (Alastair Litterick and Gerald Williams)
    Scheduling needs to wait for Essex to confirm its 2027-28 academic calendar, which is undergoing significant change.

    Warwick 2030

    Ed Brambley noted that Adam Thomas will also attend future meetings where possible. Warwick are in the early stages of planning but are meeting regularly internally and with Warwick Conferences.

  6. Date of next committee meeting
    at Cardiff BMC in March-April 2026, in hybrid format; exact date to be confirmed.

  7. Any other business

    The Chair initiated a short discussion about "mathematics-adjacent" workshops or events, noting that recent BMCs had included sessions on mathematics education, public engagement and formalization, for example. The Chair suggested that communication of mathematics to the public could be a possible topic and of- fered to link interested organisers with the Mathsci-comm network
    (https://mathsci-comm.maths.org/).
    Discussions with exhibitors at the Exeter meeting had also identified that publishers might be interested in providing additional sponsorship for relevant events, e.g. a new author talk.
Jan Grabowski
24th September 2025