Dear IAU members,
As announced in the previous Editorial, the programme for the celebration of the 100 years anniversary of the IAU has been drafted and presented at the Communicating Astronomy with the Public (CAP) Conference that is taking place these days in Fukuoka. The CAP Conference 2018 is attended by about 450 participants and it provides the ideal opportunity to launch and discuss the programme with the National Outreach Coordinators and with the astronomy communicators at large.
Although all the National Members are welcome to propose their own plan of activities to celebrate the 2019 Anniversary in the spirit of the motto “Uniting the World to Explore our Universe”, the IAU Task Force has identified nine flagship Projects that would help to achieve the main objectives of the celebration: a limited amount of grants has been reserved to fund national initiatives related to the flagship Projects .
An entire session of the CAP Conference has been devoted to astronomy for inclusion: it has been refreshing and encouraging to see how many interesting and diversified initiatives are being pursued around the world using astronomy to support the progress and wellbeing of people, in particular children, with various disabilities or suffering from social marginalisation. The IAU wishes to enhance the visibility of these meritorious projects and will organise a dedicated day at the Vienna IAU General Assembly (GA) under the title “Inspiring Stars”.
The year 2019 has been declared, by UNESCO, the International Year of the Periodic Table of the Chemical Elements (IYPT): the IAU is happy to endorse its celebration since astronomy has played an important role on the discovery of the physical processes that give origin to the elements. The IYPT will be included in the IAU 100 years programme.
I am also happy to announce the completion of the digitalisation of the entire set of IAU Proceedings, which are now freely available online on the Cambridge University Press dedicated site.
The review of the proposal for new Individual and Junior Members is almost complete. More than 1300 new members will be presented for approval in Vienna and the gender balance of the new cohort indicates 30% are female astronomers: although this only represents around a 2% improvement in the overall balance, the trend is quite encouraging. The detailed statistics, to be presented after the GA, will show which Countries have reached a satisfactory gender equality and which ones have still to work on it.
The preparation of the next Executive Committee Meeting (EC #100, Vienna, April 16-20) is under way. Many important decisions are expected that will be announced soon after the Meeting: the winners of the PhD Prize 2018 (which will be invited to participate in the GA together with the 2017 winners), the 9 Symposia to be organized in 2019, the Scientific Programme of the GA andthe IAU Strategic Plan 2020-2030… stay tuned!
Piero Benvenuti
IAU General Secretary
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27 March 2018: To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2019, the IAU will organise a year-long worldwide public engagement celebration under the theme “Uniting our World to ...
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27 March 2018: The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is very pleased that the United Nations has designated 2019 as the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements (IYPT 2019) [1]. This ...
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23 March 2018: This Saturday, 24 March 2018, the eight Communicating Astronomy with the Public Conference (CAP) 2018 starts at the Fukuoka City Science Museum, in Japan. This is the largest CAP Conference ...
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9 March 2018: The Astronomy Outreach Newsletter 2018 #5 is now online. It is produced by the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach and brings to the general public the latest information about events ...
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