President's Letter – Fall 2024

The summer and early autumn of 2024, like every year between congresses, has been a period of implementation of the changes and transformations resulting from the decisions that were taken at our last General Assembly, a period in which the continuation of the scientific debate is transferred to the Regional Associations.

The IUCr Executive Committee, the Finance Committee and our Commissions and Committees have been working in their respective areas with a specific focus on our next global meeting in Calgary, Canada in 2026.

The administrative heart of our Union, in Chester, is behind all of this activity, keeping the activity of the Union orderly in the service of global structural science. This involves maintaining the momentum of our editorial force, which is so important for the maintenance of scientific programs, support for young researchers and the promotion and dissemination of structural science through our ‘Open Labs’, and for the establishment of new infrastructure in the most disadvantaged regions. Among these are the initiatives in the LAAAMP environment for building new light sources and the Laboratories for Structural Science in Benin and Jamaica. Vice-President Graciela Diaz is the IUCr representative on the LAAAMP Executive Committee.

Following the implementation of more frequent Executive Committee meetings, taking advantage of the ability to meet online, with bimonthly face-to-face meetings, the Finance Committee has adopted the same model, while incorporating two advisors with profiles that complement those of its statutory members. Ilia Guzei and Ed Mitchell, who were already advising the Finance Committee on its decisions, have now been incorporated as advisors.

The Finance Committee is doing a good job in containing expenses consistent with fulfilling our mission and obtaining the maximum return on our investments.

Given the importance of the various dissemination projects throughout the world and in order to provide a channel for response to requests for support, the Executive Committee has created an Advisory Committee to evaluate, in an agile and fair manner, the various requests for support; this committee is chaired by the Past-President.

I have had the opportunity to attend and participate in various meetings and congresses of the Regional Associations. Last July in Denver, after the meeting of the Executive Committee and the Finance Committee, where we had the opportunity to discuss the preparations for the 27th General Assembly and Congress in Calgary, we were also able to exchange projects with the Council of the American Crystallographic Association during its 74th meeting.

Later, at the end of August, the meeting of the European Crystallographic Association (ECM34) took place in Padova in combination with the meeting of the European Powder Diffraction Conference (EPDIC18), a very fortunate combination that had not occurred since 2010 at the Darmstadt congress.

At the end of September, I had the opportunity to represent the IUCr at the meeting of the Latin American Crystallographic Association (LACA) in Montevideo.

All of these meetings of our Regional Associations have been extraordinarily satisfactory, not only in the high quality and variety of the research that was presented, but especially in the high proportion of young researchers, the initiatives to increase the influence of women scientists and the growing connection of structural science with society and sustainability.

Unfortunately, this year I shall miss the Asian Crystallographic Association (ASCA) meeting, which takes place at the beginning of December in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but I will be at the African Crystallographic Association meeting in Algeria in April 2025 and will be present at the 2025 ASCA meeting.

As a consequence of the generational changes in our Chester office, Louise Jones has been promoted to the new position of Head of Publishing Operations, and we have recruited a new person to fill the position of Head of Publishing Strategy. Kezia Bowman is now responsible for the publication of this Newsletter, in addition to her other duties.

An important step in the incorporation of new blood into the IUCr has been the first meeting of a group of young researchers in structural science, this meeting was attended by young scientists proposed by the five Regional Associations, together with our CEO Alex Stanley, Louise Jones, Manfred Weiss and myself. This inaugural meeting was highly satisfactory and inspiring for the future of the IUCr. A calendar of actions was designed for the full operation of this group and for its gradual incorporation into the various bodies and commissions of the IUCr before its formal approval at the 27th General Assembly. This movement and its success will be fundamental for the future of the International Union of Crystallography and the maintenance of our leadership in structural science.

The International Science Council (ISC) Elections Committee presented a shortlist of candidates for renewal of the ISC Governing Board. The list of candidates promoted by the IUCr, together with the rest of the Unions making up the ISC, had relative success, with some candidates from the Unions’ list being included in the final shortlist. Nevertheless, our candidate Hanna Dabkowska was excluded, and the presidency and some other positions were reduced to only a single candidate. This lack of capacity to elect the general assembly results in an obvious democratic deficit and a consequent deterioration in the public image and in the legitimacy of representation, and to a deficit in the confidence of the associates, in particular of the Scientific Unions.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 was awarded to the researchers David Baker, for his work on computational protein design, and Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper, for their work on the AlphaFold tools for protein structure prediction using artificial intelligence. This award is also a great encouragement to the many of you who work in this field, and particularly the members of the Biological Macromolecules Commission.

The International Programme Committee (IPC) for the Calgary congress is now being formed, and it is very important that the Commissions are able to nominate the most scientifically appropriate persons, so that the IPC is a true reflection of the diversity that characterizes our International Union, in particular in gender, geography and age.

At the beginning of next year the IUCr award call for nominations (the Ewald, Bragg and Struchkov Prizes) will be announced. The committees are being decided and the rules are being revised, and for the maximum success of the prizes it is important that the community is prepared to nominate the most outstanding researchers, particularly in areas and sectors that have not been recognized by past awards.

As usual, I end this letter with profound gratitude 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 and his team, welcome to Kezia, and thanks to all contributors for making possible, as in every quarter, a new quarterly issue that continues to be the reference communication for our community.

Many thanks to all for contributing to maintaining the momentum of the IUCr, wherever they are in the world.

Enjoy practicing structural science!