Report from Executive Committee

General Assembly

Back row: M. J. Cooper (Convener, IUCr Finance Committee), M. H. Dacombe (Executive Secretary). Executive Committee: J. M. Guss, R. Kuzel, M. Takata, W. Depmeier and S. Garcia-Granda. Front row: H. Dabkowska, L. Van Meervelt (General Secretary and Treasurer), M. L. Hackert (President), A. M. Glazer (Vice-President) and G. R. Desiraju (Immediate Past President).

The General Assembly held three sessions at the Montreal Congress. Applications for membership from Costa Rica, Pakistan, Turkey, Uruguay, Venezuela, Morocco, Cameroon and Algeria were accepted (all in Category I). The Minutes of the Twenty-Second General Assembly in 2011 were approved, and the triennial financial report and the reports of the Executive Committee, the Commissions, the Scientific Associates and Regional Associates and the Union Representatives on Other Bodies since the Twenty-Second General Assembly in 2011 were accepted. The excellent success of the International Year of Crystallography was noted. New officers of the Union, Chairs and members of Commissions and Union Representatives were elected and the appointments of Editors of the Union were confirmed. The formation of a new Commission on NMR Crystallography and Related Methods was approved (see article here). The Commission on Synchrotron Radiation was re-named the Commission on Synchrotron and XFEL Radiation, and the Commission on Crystallography of Materials would continue with ad interim status. The recently formed Latin-American Crystallographic Association (LACA) was accepted as a Regional Associate. The Reports of the Chair of the Sub-committee on the Union Calendar, the Chair of the Committee for the Maintenance of the CIF Standard, the Chair of the Diffraction Data Deposition Working Group and of the Editor of the IUCr Newsletter were received. The good progress of the IUCr/Oxford University Press Book Series was noted. The General Assembly approved the recommendation that the unit contribution should remain unchanged at CHF 1,000 for the years 2015–2017 inclusive. Progress with plans for the Twenty-Fourth General Assembly in Hyderabad, India, were noted and the General Assembly accepted an invitation to hold the Twenty-Fifth General Assembly and Congress in Prague, Czech Republic, in 2020.

Executive Committee

The Executive Committee met for several days before and most days during the Congress, mainly to deal with matters directly related to the business of the General Assembly and the work of the Commissions. Particular emphasis was placed on the development of the IUCr journals, new Volumes for International Tables, all aspects of the International Year of Crystallography, and the work of the Sub-committee on the Union Calendar. The OpenLabs were proving a great success and promising initiatives resulting from the three summit meetings were anticipated. Following the General Assembly sessions, at the joint meeting of old and new Executive Committees it was decided that written instructions on the conduct of elections within Commissions (when preparing recommendations for membership) and guidelines for countries applying for membership of the Union would be prepared. It was agreed that it was important to ensure the legacy of the International Year of Crystallography so that the many initiatives that had proved successful could be maintained. An IYCr legacy Fund was established.