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[Gautam Desiraju] Gautam R. Desiraju

The Executive Committee (EC) of the IUCr met recently in Adelaide and took some important decisions regarding the International Year of Crystallography (IYCr), and our journals. IYCr is going to be a very important occasion for all of us to celebrate and commemorate our subject, to build bridges with the student community and with the general public at large. I hope that the Year will see a number of new country-to-country exchanges and also region-to-region ones. Members of the EC have been entrusted with independent charge of various activities. These include regional activities in Africa, Latin America, Eastern and South Eastern Europe and upcoming regions in Asia. Planned also are interactions with large facilities and especially the SESAME project in the Middle East. IUCr wishes to be actively involved with our Commissions, Regional Associates and National Committees. These activities will be organized and monitored by individual EC members. Educational activities of all types will be planned by an individual member. All names and details will be posted on the IYCr web page, the planning and execution of which is the responsibility of yet another member. An IYCr Project Manager will be appointed shortly and will coordinate the activities of the EC, our Chester office, and all of you. We are also aware that the IYCr coincides with a Congress Year and our (two North American) members will plan IYCr-related activities for the Montreal Congress. I hope to see as many of you as possible in Montreal in August 2014.

Our journals will also play an important role during IYCr in terms of increasing and improving our outreach to the research community. To celebrate the IYCr, the Union will be launching a new open-access high-impact journal that will cover all areas of crystallography. When the Union began its activities in 1948, Acta Crystallographica was the journal where the most important results in the subject were published. We are aiming for this new journal to be the flagship journal of the Union where similarly important results will be published. At this time, I would like to welcome Samar Hasnain, University of Liverpool, the new Editor-in-Chief of our publications. Prof. Hasnain has had a very successful tenure as Section Editor of Journal of Synchrotron Radiation and is no stranger to the Union. I would like you to join me and extend all cooperation to him and his team of very dedicated section editors and co-editors and make us all feel proud of our journals and our Union.

The EC meeting in Adelaide was held to synchronize with the joint meeting of AsCA and SCANZ and, as usual, the talks and posters in this meeting were of a very high standard indeed. A unique celebration was also held at that time to celebrate the contributions of W. H. Bragg and W. L. Bragg to the subject of crystallography. Considering that W. H. Bragg was a professor in the University of Adelaide and that W. L. Bragg was born and raised in Adelaide, the timing and location of the symposium were particularly appropriate. A large number of distinguished crystallographers and associates and family members of the Braggs were present. It was truly a memorable occasion.

I wish all of you the best wishes of the season and a happy, peaceful and scientifically rewarding 2013.

Gautam R. Desiraju (desiraju@sscu.iisc.ernet.in)
28 January 2013