MacTutor logo MacTutor

Scientific Committee Minutes for October 2023

Minutes for the meeting of the BMC Scientific Committee of Monday 9th October 2023, 1000-1200, on zoom.

  1. Introductions
    Those present were as follows:
    Chair: Sarah Rees (Newcastle)
    LMS reps: Richard Thomas (Imperial)
    EMS rep: Sophie Huczynska (St Andrews)
    Bath 2023: Kirill Cherednichenko
    Manchester 2024: Charles Eaton
    Exeter 2025: Mark Holland
    Ex officio: Elizabeth Fisher (Programme Secretary LMS), Simon Edwards (Executive Secretary LMS).
    Future Chair: Jan Grabowski, Lancaster
    Karin Baur (Leeds, LMS rep) sent apologies. Jan Grabowski was introduced to the committee: he will take over as Chair at the Manchester BMC.
  2. Minutes of last Scientific Committee meeting
    by zoom on 4th April at the Bath BMC were approved.
  3. Report on the 2023 Bath BMC :
    Kirill Cherednichenko gave a full report to the committee. The meeting had been very successful.
    Public Lecture Speaker Katie Steckles had been unable to attend at the last minute, due to Covid. Her place had been taken by Colin Wright, who had spoken with enormous enthusiasm and dexterity on the Mathematics of Juggling. Another highlight had been the LMS lecture, given by Tim Browning,
    There had been 142 registered participants, in addition to all the ple- nary speakers, the local organisers, and participants from Bristol and Bath Universities, who were invited to attend unregistered. The true total was therefore in excess of 200 participants.
    The one hour morning lectures were held in pairs, and each attracted 2550 participants. Each workshop attracted 5060 participants, with 30 minute talks, and 8 speakers. Each plenary attracted around 120 participants. The registration data showed 86 postdocs, 51 postgraduate students, 15 listed as 'other including retired'.
    The conference dinner and the reception proceding it were held at the Pump Rooms and the Roman Baths, and had been hailed as a 'great experience'.
    147 participants registered for the workshop in Algebra, 54 in Geometry, 30 in Probability, 35 in Analysis, 39 in Number Theory and 29 in Outreach. The Outreach sessions had been particularly successful; one of those had included an onstage panel, fielding questions from the audience.
    There had been a poster session with prizes, where winners had been selected by online voting.
    All criteria set by the LMS as funders had been met. There had been a lot of positive feedback, and the financial report had now been submitted to LMS.
    The total budget for everything apart from the workshops (which had been funded using grant money raised by the workshop organisers) had been £46 680; a total of £46133 was spent. Of the income, £15000 was provided by the LMS, and a substantial amount was provided by regstration fees (with a standard rate of £100, early bird rate of £75).
    A few points in this report were clarified during questions to Kirill from the committee. Kirill confirmed that the workshops were funded by separate money not considered within the main budget; when this was included, the true cost was £85-90K.
    Charles checked figures for attendance at the Probability workshop, commenting that there would be no probability workshop in Manch- ester.
  4. Info on the 2024 Manchester BMC
    Charles Eaton reported on planning for the upcoming Manchester BMC on 17th20th June. The organisation team consisted of Charles together with Gareth Jones, Omar Leon Sanchez and Donald Robertson.
    The website is up and running, with full lists of the six plenary speakers, the 12 morning speakers and 7 subject areas of the workshops. Registration will open in November.
    The Plenary lectures were all being funded by Clay, but the speakers had been selected by the local committee. Katie Steckles would give the public lecture, since she had been unable to do that in Bath, due to Covid.
    Each workshop had been given an initial grant of £2K, and it was hoped that more funds for those would become available pending an application to Elsevier. The workshops covered 7 subject areas, and to each two organisers had been assigned, who had invited speakers for six 30 minute talks. In addition there would be 2 hours assigned within each workshop for speed talks, eight 10 minute talks plus breaks, to be given mainly by postgraduate students. Those speakers would be able to request to talk as they registered.
    Most events, including receptions and the conference dinner, would be held in the Alan Turing building (mathematics), and the organisers would be working hard to make sure that people returned there regu- larly; large lectures would be in the nearby Schuster building (physics). Katie Steckles' public lecture would be elsewhere (to be confirmed), possible at University Place, where there was a 600 seater lecture theatre, which would certainly be very suitable for this event (Charles commented that Dame Katherine Ollenshaw events were currently held there very successfully).
    The early bird registration rate had been set at £85, and would be due by the end of February. The full rate would be £120. Registration would be paid via an online store.
    A grant of £15 K had been awarded by LMS. Clay was paying directly for the main speakers. Heilbronn had provided a grant of £9K, including £500 awarded for childcare; participants could apply for up to £100 each for these, which could be claimed in advance, and used for costs incurred by participants at home, not just in Manchester. The University of Manchester had contributed £12800, £10K of which was covering room hire. A grant from Elsevier for £3K was pending; this was been given on the understanding that registration fees would be waived for Journal of Algebra editors, who would hold an editorial board meeting at the conference.
    The public lecture would be on the Monday evening, togerher with a reception. The dinner, preceded by a reception would be on the Wednesday, and would be informal, in the Alan Turing building.
    There would be satellite meetings on semigroups, logic and model theory, dynamical systems and category theory.
    Funding from Cambridge University Press and the Royal Society had yet to be finalised. The budget was about £50K.
    Charles also commented that as a new venture this BMC would have sessions in numberical analysis, rather than in probability.
    Kiril asked for clarification that the Clay institute had not required to right to choose the speakers they were funding, and this was confirmed.
  5. Future BMCs
    After Manchester 2024, we have Exeter 2025 (Mark Holland, joint BMC-BAMC), Cardiff 2026 (Timothy Logvinenko). A request from Birmingham (Simon Goodwin) to do 2027 was discussed. Simon had told Sarah that he expected to run the meeting in the usual format, with sessions themed around research interests at Birmingham, but also taking external guidance to get broader coverage. He considered that it was Birmingham's turn to make this contribution to the British Mathematical Community. He pointed out that Birmingham had access to some excellent facilities, in particular an excellent, large lecture theatre and an on campus hotel. Simon Edwards com- mented on the excellent Edgbaston Park Hotel, which had been used by HoDoMs; we assumed that this was the hotel to whch Simon Goodwin was referring. The committee was enthusiastic about the request; Sarah was asked to put the following questions to Simon:
    (1) Does he have a team to help him?
    (2) Will the University be supportive, in particular (a) will they give the conference a favourable rate for the hotel, (b) will there be lecture room charges,
    (c) is the University attaching overheads to conference grants?
  6. Date of next meeting
    The next meeting of the Scientific Committee would be at the Manchester BMC; remote attendance would be possible for those on the Committeee unable to attend in person. The AGM of the BMC also needed to be scheduled; at Bath this had been scheduled just before the Scientific Committee meeting. Charles made some proposals for a slot, referring to the provisional timetable.
    NB: there was some further discussion on this topic between some committee members after the meeting. The BMC committee meeting is now scheduled for 1330 on 19th June, and will be a hybird meeting, and the AGM is scheduled for 1630-1645 on the same day, will take place just before the LMS meeting. The document OrganisingBMC, which failed to explain properly the purposes of the AGM (primarily to thank the organisers of the current BMC and give details of the next one) has been updated and will be circulated to the committee with these minutes.
  7. Any other business
    there was no further business.
Sarah Rees 3rd Nov 2023