European Crystallographic Meeting 35, Lviv/Poznań, Ukraine/Poland, 25-29 August 2025

At the end of August, crystallographers and scientists from adjacent fields met for the 35th edition of the European Crystallographic Meeting (ECM). ECM35, initially scheduled to take place in Lviv, Ukraine, was relocated to Poznań, Poland, due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, with the event hosted by the organizers from Adam Mickiewicz University (https://ecm35.ecanews.org/).

More than 700 participants contributed to 48 symposia, covering a wide range of topics, ranging from crystallography in drug discovery, room temperature bio-crystallography, interactions key for understanding diseases, development of technologies and tools in electron crystallography, fragment screening, quantum crystallography, aperiodic structures, crystallization, and AI in crystallography to the latest developments in synchrotron and XFEL technologies, time resolved crystallography, magnetic structures, in situ techniques, and applications in materials science, extreme conditions studies, simulations and predictions, dynamics and disorder, across 96 invited lectures, 146 oral presentations and 275 posters. Several microsymposia focused on general topics, including funding, publishing, and online teaching in crystallography. The plenary lectures by Sven Lidin (Lund University) and Simon Billinge (Columbia University, New York) guided us through “Crystallography – a subject that constantly reinvents itself” and “What I learned about structure from artificial intelligence”.  Nineteen keynote lectures brought insights into specific areas of crystallography or its applications. A special keynote “George Sheldrick’s SHELX: success for all” by Isabel Uson and a special session “Remembering George Sheldrick” celebrated the outstanding contributions and impact of our late colleague, crystallographer George M. Sheldrick.

The scientific program was accompanied by a concert in the Adam Mickiewicz University Hall, a student mixer, a gala dinner with live jazz music, a science slam and an open lecture for the general public: “Nobel Prize winner Max von Laue was a student in Poznań”. Twelve satellite events included the 6th International School on Aperiodic Crystals, “Utilising CCP4 for structure solution”, “Understanding solid forms with the CSD”, Synchrotron Intro, Quantum Crystallography Workshop, European Young Crystallographers Satellite Meeting, 3D-deltaPDFs and diffuse scattering analysis, the so-called Frolic Goats High Pressure Workshop, Computing in Crystallography Forum, Highscore Workshop, Crystallography in School (promoting teaching of crystallography with school science teachers), and MACSMIN2025: Mathematics and Computer Science for Materials Innovation.

We are grateful to the team of local organizers led by Maciej Kubicki who stepped in to make it possible to realize a 'Ukrainian ECM' in Poland. We also appreciate the efforts of the team from the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, led by Grygoriy Dmytriv and Roman Gladyshevskii, who led the ECM35 Programme Committee. Together, the organizing and program committees and microsymposia chairs and co-chairs prepared an event full of the latest science, outstanding speakers, and friendly atmosphere in the lovely city of Poznań.

Three crystallographic prizes were awarded during the Meeting. The Max Perutz Prize was given to Professor Gilberto Artioli (University of Padova), accompanied by his lecture “My life as a curious crystallographer”. The Alajos Kálmán Prize was awarded to Felipe Gándara Barragán (Materials Science Institute of Madrid – CSIC), and the George M. Sheldrick prize to Lauren E. Hatcher (Cardiff University). You can find more information about the ECA prizes here: https://ecanews.org/prizes/.  

Poster prizes were awarded in five categories, supported by IUCr Journals, NanoMEGAS, Rigaku, SIG-06, SIG-13, CCDC, and CrystEngComm, to the best poster presenters in specific fields of research, instrumentation development, or at the start of their careers.

The ECA Council has approved the organization of the European Crystallographic School (ECS) 12 at the Diamond Light Source, United Kingdom, in the 2nd half of June 2027 and launch of the new ECA Scholarship Program aimed at supporting PhD students and young post-docs in realization of their research projects in a foreign laboratory (https://ecanews.org/blog/2025/09/01/scholarship-program-of-the-european-crystallographic-association/). A new special interest group of the ECA with focus on magnetism was approved by the Council: SIG-16 – Magnetic Crystallography. The ECA also agreed to launch a new mentoring scheme, “GEMS: GIGs ECA Mentoring Scheme”, which will provide mentoring opportunities for association members, primarily early-stage crystallographers (https://ecanews.org/gig-01/gems/).

The upcoming ECS 11 will be held in Stockholm, June-July 2026 (https://ecs11.org/), and ECM36 will be held in Prague, Czech Republic, in August 2027 (https://www.xray.cz/ecm36/).