Picture of CCE members attending the IUPAC/CHAINS 2023 conference in Hague.

REPORT on IUPAC/CHAINS 2023
Div V (Analytical Chemistry) and CCE (Committee on Chemistry Education)

The world chemistry congress the 52nd IUPAC General Assembly, IUPAC/CHAINS 2023, was arranged in Hague, the Netherlands, in August 18-25, 2023. The general assembly meetings were on August 18-20, followed by the scientific conference. In total the conference gathered around 1800 attendees from all over the world. The highest number of attendees were naturally from Europe, but also Asia and South America were very well represented.

On Saturday and Sunday we had the division meetings. In the Committee on Chemistry Education (CCE) meeting the discussion was much about a) awards (old and new) and how to select the best candidates and reach out to a broad audience, b) projects, those were CCE has the main role and also collaboration projects (undersigned has the responsibility of CCE projects), c) about the budget and financial situation of the committee; the funding will be much decreased for the following year, so not too many new projects will be funded, and d) about upcoming conferences. To note here is that the next ICCE meeting (27th IUPAC ICCE) will be in Thailand in Pattaya in July 2024, and the following meeting (28th IUPAC ICCE) will be in July 2026 in Erzurum, Turkey.

An important aspect of CCE is its involvement in the Chemistry Teacher International journal. The journal is doing well, and it has already been indexed by both Scopus and SSCI (the impact factor by clarivate is 1.5, and by scopus 2.0). The journal has a broad international author base and readership. On Sunday there was some brainstorming about the future of CCE and the undersigned took part of the scientific networking session where all divisions and committees were represented. All this to additionally enhance the collaboration between the different parties.

In Div V (analytical chemistry) the subcommittees to the division were much discussed, as well as the projects lead by CCE. The Div V award winners Professor Janusz Pawliszyn and Professor Xian Yan presented their research. The division dinner was held on Saturday evening in downtown Hague. On Sunday there were two good meetings with the other divisions: a joint meeting with Div VI (Chemistry and the Environment Division) and Div VII (Chemistry and Human Health Division), which included vivid discussion about upcoming new interdivisional projects, and a joint meeting with Div II (inorganic chemistry), where the divisions already have some good ongoing collaborative projects.

The scientific conference program was broad with several parallel sessions, including topics related to health, sustainability, molecular frontiers, smart and energy materials, and ethics, education and the society. The undersigned gave a talk in the health session.

Looking forward many upcoming interesting IUPAC meetings (2025 in Kuala Lumpur, 2027 in Montréal, and 2029 in Prague).

Susanne Wiedmer
Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, University of Helsinki
TM for CCE, TM for DIv V

Picture of Div V members attending the IUPAC/CHAINS 2023 conference in Hague.