IUCr news digest 18 July 2014

Nature Milestones in Crystallography has just launched. Produced with support from the IUCr and the worldwide network of neutron and X-ray sources, the supplement has been timed to coincide with the International Year of Crystallography, and features 25 topics that have been specially selected to highlight the breadth of crystallography. Nature Milestones in Crystallography, a collaborative effort between Nature, Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology and Nature Structure & Molecular Biology, is the eleventh supplement in the series.

Crystallography is a subject that is practised in almost all of the scientific disciplines including physics, chemistry, biology and materials sciences, and the IUCr’s journals are ideally placed to represent papers from each of these disciplines and many other cross-disciplinary fields. Our new journal, IUCrJ, which launched at the beginning of the year, publishes high-profile articles on all aspects of the sciences and technologies supported by the IUCr via its Commissions.

On 11 and 12 July 2014, Editor-in-Chief of IUCr Journals, Samar Hasnain, chaired the second meeting of the Journals Management Board (JMB), which took place at the historic Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden, North Wales. Attendees were Simon Billinge (Acta A), Sandy Blake (Acta B), Tony Linden (Acta C), Helen Stoeckli-Evans (Acta E), Luc van Meervelt (Acta E), Matthias Weil (Acta E), Howard Einspahr (Acta F), Bill Hunter (Acta F), Mitchell Guss (IUCr Executive Committee), Sine Larsen (IUCrJ), and Andrew Allen (JAC), along with Chester staff.

The IUCr Executive Committee approved the establishment of the JMB comprising the main Editors of each of the journals, the IUCr President (or his/her nominee), the IUCr General Secretary and Treasurer, the Editor-in-Chief and the Executive Managing Editor in 2012. At last week’s meeting, attendees discussed issues relating to the short- to long-term development of the journals, such as journal impact factors, open access and special issues.

On the occasion of the International Year of Crystallography, Samar Hasnain and the University of Liverpool, UK organized a full-day symposium dedicated to crystallography. The speakers in the morning session were Professor Andy Cooper, University of Liverpool; Professor Stephen Pennycook, Oak Ridge, USA; and Nobel Prize Laureate Professor Dan Shechtman, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Sessions in the afternoon included presentations from Patience Thomson, daughter of Sir Lawrence Bragg; Vivien Perutz, daughter of Max Perutz; The Barkla Lecture by Professor Gautam Desiraju, President of the IUCr; and the Bragg Lecture by Professor Sir Tom Blundell. The event celebrated the University’s award of an honorary degree to Professor Shechtman and the contributions of Charles Barkla. Charles Barkla graduated from the University of Liverpool and as an active staff member played a key role in establishing the university’s involvement in the development of X-ray crystallography.