President's Letter – Winter 2023

I am writing this letter as we are in the midst of the Christmas season, as we are about to close the year 2023, which marked our 75th anniversary as a scientific organisation, and as we are about to begin 2024.

In the years between IUCr Congresses, 2024 and 2025, the spotlight should be aimed at our Regional Associates, ACA, AfCA, AsCA, ECA and LACA, all of which have announced their next meetings. This will be a wonderful opportunity to take the pulse of the state of crystallography and structural science at a regional level and also to establish new bilateral and multilateral connections between the Regional Associates and the National Committees. The IUCr, through its Meetings Support Committee, is doing its best to facilitate the participation of young scientists and to have the maximum prominence in these meetings and often associated schools. Our journals are very interested in the contributions arising from these meetings.

The calls for nominations for our flagship Ewald, Bragg and Struchkov Prizes are coming soon. The Union makes a significant financial effort to recognise the careers of the most brilliant crystallographers and structural scientists at various stages of their careers, and it is very necessary for us to be able to identify the best candidates in all scientific areas, particularly women. Therefore I ask for your collaboration with the Selection Committees in nominating candidates to ensure that the awardees are the best possible representation of our excellence and our diversity.

The IUCr Committees and Commissions, once consolidated after the renewal of their members approved by the 26th General Assembly in Melbourne, will be renewing their activity in the various scientific and organisational areas that constitute the heart of our Union and that set the guidelines for our future scientific developments. At the moment, all our Commissions are working at a good pace with the autonomy that characterises their mode of operation within the framework of the IUCr, according to the updated guidelines.

Our ten scientific journals and International Tables, together with this Newsletter and the other IUCr publications, provide the image of both our scientific level and our social contribution. They also provide us with the necessary financial return to maintain our functioning and the patrimony of our activities in order to promote the development of crystallography and structural science in the most economically and academic disadvantaged areas and to ensure the generational renewal of our scientific community.

The new members of the Executive Committee have organised their visits to our office in Chester to familiarise themselves with the activity of the 24 people who constitute the stable nucleus that efficiently carries out our technical and administrative work, essential for the functioning of the IUCr. Also, this group is very conditioned by the inevitable generational handover, for which – under the supervision of our Finance and Executive Committees – the IUCr CEO, Dr Alex Stanley, must plan with a vision for the future.

It was good for the new General Secretary and Treasurer, Professor Trevor Forsyth, and me to meet many of our team in Chester and see the initiatives being implemented to make publishing in our journals more attractive and make our journals more competitive. We also need the help of our scientific Commissions and our Regional Associates and National Committees to convince every scientist to publish their best contributions in IUCr journals. I consider that it is especially important for us to make it easy for young people to make their first scientific contributions to our journals and encourage them to transmit their comments through our Newsletter and social networks.

Trevor’s role must be decisive in the configuration of the working teams and in the control of the activity of the Chester office and in the control of the finances and resources of the Union. This intention framed our recent working visit to Chester, on 27 and 28 November, where we met with Professor Malcolm Cooper, the Convener of the IUCr Finance Committee, as well as Alex and Peter Strickland, Executive Managing Editor, visiting the different sections of the office and noting the technical and administrative improvements underway, as well as the various threats to the Union.

I would like to remember, emotionally and gratefully, those who left us in 2023 and send a message of appreciation to their families, colleagues and friends. I would also like to welcome those who joined the IUCr, either via their National Committees or as members of the IUCr Associates Programme. I do not want to forget our industrial partners, who are so supportive of our meetings and schools with their financial and technical contributions. Thank you very much for being an important part of the IUCr family.

The process initiated in Melbourne to define our Purpose, Vision and Values in an open and participatory way, to ensure the scientific and social leadership of crystallography and structural science for the remainder of the 21st century, is advancing according to the planned steps. A survey to gather the opinion of the global IUCr community has recently been conducted to concretise the ideas that best define our identity and our objectives. The results will be presented to the entire community once they have been analysed by the Executive Committee.

The Executive Committee, which had its first virtual bimonthly meeting on 7 November and has another planned for 9 January, will meet in person in Denver, CO, USA, in July 2024, coinciding with the ACA’s annual meeting. The Finance Committee meeting will be held at the same place in the preceding days. Prior to that, in March, we will have the spring meetings of the Journal Management Board in Chester and the Finance Committee in Lund, Sweden.

The Executive Committee, through its President or some of its members, will try to be present, representing the IUCr, at the most important regional and international events for the IUCr.

Our representative in the International Science Council (ISC), Dr Hanna Dabkowska, has reported on the approval process of the new ISC statutes, which, after intense activity by the International Unions, are proposed with an important protagonism of the International Unions in the decision-making processes of the Organisation. This is good news, which we hope will be confirmed in the coming months. In more good news, I would like to congratulate Hanna on her recent appointment as an ISC Fellow. The ISC Fellowship recognises individuals for their outstanding contributions to the promotion of science as a global public good, and is the highest honour that can be conferred on an individual by the ISC.

The collaborative projects being developed with governments, companies and non-governmental organisations will give an extraordinary boost to the development of science in all regions of the world. The Africa Initiative, led by Professor Claude Lecomte, is achieving important results, and other activities in Kenya, led by Professor JuanMa García-Ruiz, with important local support, are in progress. The worldwide 2023 IUCr Crystal growing competition for schoolchildren is also in progress. The development of new infrastructures in less developed countries and the project Light Sources for Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East Project (LAAAMP) are going well. And the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development, now drawing to a close, has served as a prelude to the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development 2024–2032 (IDSSD).

In this time of serious and bloody international conflicts and natural disasters, many of them due to the climate change that our societies are causing, global scientific societies must be able to identify their role in building a better world for future generations, based on scientific, technical and humanistic knowledge. As expressed before, our role is to promote, defend and protect science and scientist, keep ourselves out of fanaticism of any kind, by maintaining the bonds of scientific collaboration above conflicts and align ourselves with the progress of global society in terms of peace, justice and equity, diversity and sustainability. We have to ensure that future generations have open minds, global awareness and the resources and conditions to sustain a better and better life on the planet, and this is not only for the human species but also to maintain the planet's biodiversity and wildlife.

Once again, many thanks to all those who form and make our organisation work, the Regional Associates, the IUCr Commissions and Committees, Editors, Co-editors, referees and authors of our journals, our Chester staff and all individual crystallographers, women and men.

Thanks to IUCr Newsletter Editor Mike Glazer, his team and all contributors.

Many thanks to all for keeping the IUCr alive, active, strong and human.

Happy 2024 from all of us!