Back to search

FRINATEK-Fri prosj.st. mat.,naturv.,tek

10th Congress of the International Society of Theoretical Chemical Physics

Awarded: NOK 0.23 mill.

Almost 550 researchers from around the world gathered in Tromsø for the 10th Congress of the International Society of Theoretical Chemical Physics (ISTCP-X) July 11-17 2019. With more than 202 lectures in plenary sessions and 14 topical parallel sessions and 280 poster presentations, the participants were able to enjoy the latest scientific advances in the field of theoretical and computational physics. The conference program was busy, starting at 08.30 in the morning and lasting until 21.00 on the days with poster sessions. Each day was normally started with two plenary lectures followed by three groups of four talks in 3-4 parallel sessions, finishing at 18.30. The plenary speakers was selected by an international scientific committee that also identified 14 different scientific topics that should be the focus of the conference. The scientific committee also invited internationally leading scholars to chair these scientific topics and in turn invite whom they thought to be the leading international scholars within these different topics. The conference was also a great venue to promote the research being done at the Hylleraas centre. In addition to Hylleraas director Trygve Helgaker giving a plenary lecture on the life and work of Egil Hylleraas, Hylleraas PIs Michele Cascella, Luca Frediani, Kathrin Hopmann and Michal Repisky had all been invited by session chairs to present their research. Hylleraas PI Bjørn Olav Brandsdal also stepped in on short notice when one of the speakers did not catch his flight and thus could not attend the conference. Additionally, 10 of the younger members of the Hylleraas centre presented their research during the poster presentations. The conference was praised by the participants for the high quality of the scientific program. The program featured 66 females among the 202 invited speakers and thus one in three speakers were women, and 5 of the 12 plenary speakers were women, probably making it among the most gender balanced conferences in the field of theoretical chemical physics in recent years. Conference attendance is often more complicated for primary caregivers, in part because necessary facilities may not be available at the conference site. The collaboration with the conference venue, Clarion Hotel The Edge allowed the conference to offer a nursing room for participants with such needs, and through generous sponsorship the conference could also offer bursaries to primary givers to cover additional expenses arising from participation at the conference as a consequence of caregiving needs. In total, six such bursaries were provided to participants with such needs. In addition to its focus on promoting gender balance, the ISTCP-X conference implemented a number of measures to reduce waste (and in this way also keep costs, and conference fee, low). The conference did not offer any printed book of abstracts, and instead the program was only available online, but in a format well suited for portable devices such as mobile phones and tablets. This online program was developed in-house by Hylleraas member Michal Repisky, and this solution was very well received by the conference participants. The welcome package was also kept to a minimum, containing only a certificate of attendance, a name badge and food and drink vouchers that the participants had ordered or that was included in the conference fee. The conference had received support from multiple scientific journals for awarding poster prizes to students and postdocs who wanted to participate in the poster prize competition, and a total of 12 poster prizes were awarded. The local organisation was mainly handled by the Tromsø node of the Hylleraas Centre, and the members of the local organisation committee were Maarten Beerepoot, Bjørn Olav Brandsdal, Stig Eide, Luca Frediani, Bin Gao, Stephanie R. Hansen, Kathrin Hopmann, Michal Repisky and Kenneth Ruud. In addition to this local organisation committee, the smooth operation of the conference relied heavily on the active participation of 17 of the younger members of the Hylleraas centre to ensure that everything ran smoothly. They were outfitted with a characteristic yellow T-shirt when "on duty". At the end of the conference, the yellow t-shirts were recognised as a symbol for high quality of service, as they helped ensure the smooth running of all the scientific sessions. The conference received generous support from the Research Council of Norway, the University of Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway, both from the Department of Chemistry, the Faculty of Science and Technology and the University Rector, and the Hylleraas Centre, and this support is gratefully acknowledged.

1. Konferansen har bidratt til ytterligere å sette Hylleraas-senteret, Tromsø og Norge på det internasjonale kartet, og dermed til økt attraktivitet av norske fagmiljøer i rekruttering av internasjonale medarbeidere. 2. Mange presentasjoner Hylleraas-medlemmer (6 foredrag og 10 posterpresentasjoner) har bidratt til økt internasjonalt kjennskap til forskningen ved Hylleraas-senteret. Det bidrar til økte jobbmulighetene for PhD-studenter og postdocs ved senteret. 3. Vi har vist at høy vitenskapelig kvalitet på det vitenskapelige programmet kan sikres gjennom en høy deltagelse av kvinner blant foredragsholderne. 4. Våre innovative grep knyttet til å tilby stellerom for foreldre med slike behov under konferansen, og muligheten for foreldre til å søke om støtte til å dekke ekstrautgifter knyttet til ansvar for barn vil på sikt bidra til å gjøre det enklere for foreldre med forsørgeransvar å delta internasjonale konferanser.

The triennial congress of the International Society of Theoretical Chemical Physics (ISTCP) is one of the four large conference series in the field of electronic-structure based computational methodologies applied to atoms, molecules and solids. The other triennial conference series are organised under the auspices of the World Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists (WATOC), the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Sciences as well as the "Molecular Quantum Mechanics" series, which honours the contributions of leading scholars in this discipline. To date, none of these large, periodic conferences have been organised in Norway. The selection of Tromsø as a host for the 10th ISTCP congress thus have to be considered a recognition of the quality of theoretical chemical physics, and quantum chemistry in particular, in Norway. The scientific chair of the conference is Prof. Kenneth Ruud at UiT The Arctic University of Norway (UiT). A web page has been established for the conference: http://www.istcp-2019.org. The conference is expected to gather 300-500 researchers in theoretical chemical physics from around the world, with an absolute upper limit on the number of participants being 1000. The program will include 6 plenary sessions involving 2 keynote speakers and 10 plenary lecturers. In addition there will be 15 parallel sessions, each with three parallel tracks, allowing for more than 17 invited/contributed lectures in the parallel tracks. In addition, up to two poster sessions will be organised as part of the scientific program. Additionally, there will be an opening and closing ceremony, a plenary lecture on the life and work of Egil Hylleraas, the founder of Quantum Chemistry as well as a set of parallel sessions devoted to the current state-of-the art of his methods. 10 additional topics is selected for the remaining parallel sessions, giving a broad perspective of the state of the art in theoretical chemical physics.

Funding scheme:

FRINATEK-Fri prosj.st. mat.,naturv.,tek