Report on the Meeting of Presidents of Mathematical Societies,
in Budapest
Sjoerd Verduyn Lunel
April 2 – 3, 2016
Please refer to the separate list for attendance.
Presentations marked like this* are available on the web site
EMS Meeting of Presidents 2016 Budapest
Section A: Preliminaries
Pavel Exner, President of the European Mathematical Society and Chair of the meeting, welcomed everybody to the meeting and thanked the organizers very much for the invitation to
the Alfred Rényi Institute of Mathematics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest.
He mentioned that the idea to have a Meeting of Presidents of Mathematical Society was initiated by former EMS President Ari Laptev eight years ago. He also thanked the Hungarian Mathematical Society for its hospitality, and explained the agenda.
Section B: Introductions
1. Everybody present introduced themselves in a tour de table, saying which Society they
represented at the meeting.
2. Gyula Katona welcomed us to the Alfred Rényi Institute of Mathematics and gave a
presentation on the history and recent activity of the János Bolyai Mathematical Society.
Section C: The European Mathematical Society
1. The Chair gave his report as President of the EMS. After some `propaganda’ about what the
EMS and in particular its Committees do for its member societies and individual members,
he stressed the importance that member societies and individuals pay their dues for the
society in time. He reported that the Executive Committee sympathizes with the plight of
some of our member societies, and agreed that lack of financial means cannot solely be the
reason to terminate membership. However, it is essential that member societies that do not
pay their dues should be in direct contact with the EMS to negotiate an arrangement that
can include a possible waiver of the fees. The EC agreed that membership of member
societies that do not pay their dues nor are responsive to letters from the President, will be
terminated. In addition, the President noted that also not all individual members, even
those active in bodies of the EMS, pay their dues in time. In some cases, this might have
legal consequences regarding decisions taken by EMS committees. Since many individual
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members pay their membership fees through national societies, he urged the Presidents to
look into this matter as well. After these messages, he continued with a report on the
celebration of the 25th birthday of the Society held at Institute Henri Poincaré on October 22
in Paris, and with a report on recent developments regarding the EMS Publishing House.
The Chair reminded that the Humboldt University will host the EMS Council 2016 on July 1618, 2016 right before the 7th ECM in Berlin, and that details can be found in an
announcement of the EMS Council 2016 in the EMS Newsletter which has also been sent to
all members of the Society by e-mail. The result of the nomination of delegates representing
the associate, institutional, and individual members is that no elections are needed. At the
Council, the associate members are represented by one delegate (1 out of 1 slot), the
institutional members are represented by three delegates (3 out of 4 slots), and the
individual members are represented by twenty-five delegates (25 out of 26 slots). The
member societies have until April 24, 2016 to nominate their delegates using the online
nomination form. The Chair also reported on the (re)election of members of the Executive
Committee at the Council meeting, and informed the Presidents that the EC decided to
propose to Council to appoint Volker Mehrmann for two years (2017-2018) and Armen
Sergeev for four years (2017-2020) as Vice-Presidents. In addition to the vacancies for VicePresident, the first term of the EC members Alice Fialowski, Gert-Martin Greuel and
Laurence Halpern will end 31-12-2017. The EC members Alice Fialowski and Gert-Martin
Greuel are willing to stand for re-election at the next Council. As a result, the Executive
Committee will need in addition at least three new members. Up to now there are five
candidates that submitted their statement and CV and a couple more are expected. The
Executive Committee decided to organize a contested election of the EC members at the
Council in two rounds using an electronic voting system. The election will be organized by
the EMS Office.
The Chair reported on the wide range of scientific activities of the Society, and in particular
encouraged member societies to prepare proposals for scientific activities, such as Joint
Mathematical Weekends. The last one was organized with the LMS in Birmingham on
September 18-20, 2015, and proposals for the 9th EMS Joint Mathematical Meeting are
welcome. All applications for scientific activities in 2017 can be done using the application
forms on the website of the EMS under Scientific Activities.
The Chair started by saying that the eleven Standing Committees are the working body of
the EMS, and among other things he addressed the presence of the EMS on internet, and
reported about the activities of the EMS Web-Team. Regarding ideas to increase the
presence on the web and social media, for example, using Twitter and Blogs to enhance
interactive communication with our members, he suggested that member societies might
help by providing content. He encouraged the Presidents to contact Richard Elwes, the
Publicity Officer of the EMS, with new ideas for support. An idea might be a rotating blog at
which member societies are responsible for providing content for a couple of months before
one of the other societies takes over.
The Chair reported on the latest developments regarding Horizon 2020, and in particular
about running calls, the open EU consultation on Mathematics and the installation of the
High Level Group of Scientific Advisors of the EC Scientific Advice Mechanism with Cédric
Villani as a representative for Mathematics.
Section D: Presentations
1. Volker Bach presented* a report on the progress of the organization of the 7th ECM to be
held in Berlin from 18th July to 22nd July 2016.
2. Betül Tanbay presented* a report on the work of the Ethics Committee stressing some new
developments in the EMS Code of Practice.
3. Waclaw Marzantowicz presented* a report on the Mathematical Information Service of
PTM that was established recently in Poland.
4. Mercedes Siles Molina presented* a report outlining the deep connections between the
Royal Spanish Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Societies in South America with
the purpose to attract attention that the Royal Spanish Mathematical Society is willing to
facilitate more interactions between Europe (the EMS and its member societies) and the
Mathematical Societies in South America.
5. Klavdija Kutnar presented* the bid for hosting the 8th ECM in 2020, in Portorož, Slovenia.
6. Juan González-Meneses presented* the bid for hosting the 8th ECM in 2020, in Sevilla, Spain.
Section E: Discussion
After a short introduction by the Chair, the Presidents had an informal discussion about the experiences with mathematics education. The discussion focused on the dichotomy between
teaching mathematics to `gifted’ students and teaching a `decent’ level of mathematics to all
students that take courses in mathematics. In particular, this last group is increasing because of
the fact that mathematical skills are increasingly important in engineering and natural science.
The different approaches vary from country to country. Some countries have special programs
or special tutors for `gifted’ students, for example, Hungary and Romania, but in those countries there is also the problem of `brain drain’. Many `gifted’ students nowadays already leave
after high school to study abroad. Because of the shift in balance between teaching mathematics for mathematicians and teaching mathematics to satisfy the prerequisite requirements from
engineering and natural sciences, and also as a consequence of the Pisa survey, the mathematics curriculum is changing in many countries. All Presidents agree that it is vital to exchange information now and in the future about this changing landscape in mathematics education. In
Germany, a catalogue has been defined to specify the minimal requirements that students finishing secondary school have to know in order to study engineering and natural sciences. Of
course there is heated debate about the contents of the catalogue, and it was discussed
whether the Education Committee should be involved in the discussion defining minimal requirements about the level of mathematics that students have after finishing secondary school
that can be used as guidelines in the national discussions. From personal experience, a number
of Presidents recommended to `infiltrate’ in national curriculum committees to influence the
discussions about the mathematics curriculum directly. Another point where there are big differences between countries is the education of mathematics teachers. In some countries
teacher education is completely separate from university education, and those who like to become mathematics teachers are separated from those who would like to study mathematics,
and are raised in completely different cultures. In some countries there are multiple tracks to
become a teacher via a university degree or via a special school for teachers. In some countries
there are special schemes to support career change programs to become a teacher. All Presi-
dents agreed that the Education Committee should be more involved with mathematics education at secondary schools, being involved in the curriculum discussions, as well as in the education of mathematics teachers. It is also recommended that the Education Committee will become involved with the EMS sponsored EuroMath initiative aimed at students between 9 and
18, see the website of EuroMath for further information, for example about the EuroMath2016
meeting in Thessaloniki.
Section F: Any Other Business
The Chair discussed the political situation in Turkey after a colleague was put in prison for signing the academics for peace petition. The Chair motivated the reasons that made the EC decide
to write letters of concern on behalf of the European Mathematical Society to the Turkish
prime minister and to the head of the European Parliament. All Presidents supported the initiative and agreed to follow the developments closely, and to investigate what they can do at a
national level to express our concern about the situation in Turkey even stronger.
Section G: Next Meeting
The next meeting will be held in the Spring of 2017 in Lisbon.
Section H: Closing
On behalf of all the participants, the Chair thanked the local organizers of this meeting for their
excellent preparation and hospitality and their warm welcome at the Alfred Rényi Institute of
Mathematics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.