IUCr news digest April 28 - May 2, 2014

April saw the first in the IUCr-UNESCO Series of summit meetings, held in Karachi, Pakistan, between April 28 and 30. The International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS) became the home to scientists and dignitaries from 19 countries, including the President of the IUCr, Professor Gautam Radhakrishna Desiraju, Editor-in-Chief of IUCr Journals, Professor Samar S. Hasnain, and Executive Secretary of the IUCr, Mr Michael H. Dacombe. Entitled Vistas in Structural Chemistry the South Asia Summit meeting is the first of three Summit meetings to be held around the world to mark the International Year of Crystallography.

The IUCr-UNESCO OpenLab Pakistan, in partnership with Bruker, also opened at the ICCBS on Wednesday 30 April 2014, with activities for students continuing until May 8. A series of OpenLabs is planned to take place in Morocco, Ghana, Uruguay, Turkey, France and Germany throughout the year. The next OpenLab will take place May 5-10 in Argentina.

Back in the Chester office work continues in developing the new Open Access submission system for Acta Crystallographica Section E which is due to launch its new article types, Research Communications and Data Reports, from June 2014.

A major commitment of the IUCr is to promote education and learning in our schools. The crystal growing competition for schoolchildren is now in full swing with over 20 participating schools already. You can submit entries direct from the IYCr2014 website.

If you’d like the opportunity to meet many of the IUCr team, book your place to attend the one-day symposium dedicated to the science of examining the arrangement of atoms in solids. The event will take place at the University of Liverpool on July 17. Three separate sessions will celebrate the University’s award of an honorary degree to Professor Dan Shechtman (Nobel Prize 2011) as well as the contributions of Charles Barkla and Sir Lawrence Bragg.

If you cannot join us on this day of celebration, to keep up to date on latest developments remember to sign-up or update your entry in the World Directory of Crystallographers where you will become part of a growing community of crystallographers and related scientific researchers. Sign-up is free and once registered you can subscribe to our journal e-alerts and IUCr Newsletter.

You can follow the IUCr on Facebook (we have also created an official International Year of Crystallography Facebook page), Twitter and our newly created Linkedin Groups page where you can interact with colleagues and faculties around the world.

If you have any comments about how we can improve our service, please do not hesitate to get in touch ([email protected]). We look forward to hearing from you.