European Science
Challenges and Opportunities
Pavel Exner
Doppler Institutefor Mathematical Physics and Applied Mathematics
Praguewith the help of the EMS Office and the ERC Executive Agency

A talk at the Kochi University of Technology
Tosa Yamada, October 13, 2015

P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

October 13, 2015

-1-Do we need science?
It is a provocative question, of course, but the answer is simple.
Looking at history, one finds that that there is a strong correlation
between scientific progress and wellbeing of the society.
Examples are abundant. One of the best is to look at the the factors
which gave Europe the leading role in the world for many decades in the19th and 20th centuries. A dominant role among them is played by thesteady science development started in the Enlightenment period.
Of course, other parts of the world made their weighty contributions.
In the present competitive worlds, Europe is trying not to lag behind.
The aim of this talk is to tell you about some recent activities in
European science.

P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

October 13, 2015

-2-What I am going to talk about
The subject is rather extensive and I have to make a choice. I intend
to address in this talk two particular topics:
Mathematics in Europe seen from a particular perspective: since
I have the honor of leading the European Mathematical Society,I will tell you what it is doing
Then I will switch to a more general topic, namely to funding
opportunities in Europe. Eight years ago a new system ofsupporting excellent science through the European Research Council
was introduced and I am going describe how it works and why it canbe of interest to Japanese scientists

P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

October 13, 2015

-3-Europe – cradle of mathematics

While mathematical ideas and techniques were developed at all continents
and the first historical records come from di↵erent places and there wereperiods when other had borne the flag, it is not a false modesty to saythat the main body of the science we call mathematics today was formedin Europe.
If this claim needs a proof, it enough to start listing names, for instance,
those of Pythagoras, Eucleides, Archimedes, Diophantus, Fibonacci,Descartes, Newton, Leibnitz, Fermat, Pascal, Euler, Laplace, Lagrange,Gauss, Abel, Galois, Hamilton, Riemann, Klein, Poincaré, Hilbert, andscores of the others

P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

October 13, 2015-4-Mathematical societies
Academies in which scientists join have a long tradition which can betraced back to the ancient Greece. In Europe they started flourishingagain since the Renaissance period.
As the numbers of working mathematicians grew they began to organize
societies with a purely or dominantly mathematical focus. Among theearly ones, one can mention
Amsterdam’s Koninklijk Wiskundig Genootschap
Union of Czech Mathematicians and Physicists
Moscow Mathematical Society

1864

London Mathematical Society

1865

1778
1862

then the gate opened and many other followed
During the twentieth century almost all European countries hadmathematical societies, and some had two, three, or even more
P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

October 13, 2015

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Coming together
The growing sense of European identity inspired e↵orts to create a society
representing all European mathematicians. The original impetus came in1976 from the European Science Foundation and led to establishing, atthe ICM in Helsinki in 1978, of the European Mathematical Council leadby Michael Atiyah.

The ‘zeroth president’ of the EMS

P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

October 13, 2015

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Pains of child bearing

However, one should not expect fast solutions when mathematicians
decide to solve a problem, to say nothing of the fact that the generalsituation on the European scene was far from simple.
The next meeting at the ICM in Warsaw was delayed from politicalreasons, it was followed by meeting in Prague (1986) and Oberwolfach(1988) trying to draft the prospective society statutes.
After the big political change the feeling of urgency grew stronger andled finally to the decisive meeting in the Polish town of Ma̧dralin whererepresentatives 28 societies met in October 1990.

P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

October 13, 2015

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Where it began

The Ma̧dralin meeting, October 27, 1990
P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

October 13, 2015-8-

What was agreed in Ma̧dralin
Two di↵erent concepts competed. Most participants wanted a federationof national societies, while the French advocated a society with individual
membership.
Complicated negotiations led to a compromise by which the European
Mathematical Society has a combined architecture having both individualand corporate members, the later being mostly national mathematicalsocieties but also research institutes and other bodies.
In a sense, the EMS is thus a new building made of old bricks
The Ma̧dralin meeting approved the Statues by which the society isgoverned by the Council elected by all the members, meeting every twoyears, while the day-to-day work is steered by the Executive Committee.
The meeting also elected Fritz Hirzebruch the first EMS president, he wasfollowed by an array of prominent mathematicians.
P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

October 13, 2015

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The EMS Presidents

Rolf Jeltsch (1999-2002)Friedrich Hirzebruch (1990-1994)

Jean-Pierre Bourguignon (1995-1998)

John Kingman (2003-2006)

Ari Laptev (2007-2010)

P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

Marta Sanz-Sole (2011-2014)

October 13, 2015

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What we have at the 25th birthday
In a brief summary, the EMS at the present moment represents
about 60 member societies (55 full members, two associate, threereciprocal, one new application) and 2459 individual members
26 mathematical research centers and 15 other institutional members
such mathematics departments and other scientific organizations
11 permanent committees dealing with various aspects ofmathematician’s life
quadrennial congresses interlacing with the ICM
coveted prizes regarded as a staple of quality
journal and books coming from our publishing houseas well as numerous other activities which I shall now describe in moredetails

P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of TechnologyOctober 13, 2015

- 11 -Congresses
This was one of the first decision. The European Congress of Mathematics
typically attracts around one thousand people.
1 ECM: Paris, July 6-10, 1992
2 ECM: Budapest, July 22-26, 1996
3 ECM: Barcelona, July 10-14, 2000
4 ECM: Stockholm, June 27 - July 2, 2004
5 ECM: Amsterdam, July 14-18, 2008
6 ECM: Krakow, July 2-7, 2012
The forthcoming 7th congress convenes at TU Berlin on July 18-22, 2016
http://www.7ecm.de/
For the congress in 2020 bids have been obtained from universities ofSevilla (Spain) and Primorska (Slovenia)

P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

October 13, 2015

- 12 -Prizes
The renown of the EMS Prizes is seen from the fact that of the60 laureates so far ten received subsequently the Fields medal:
Richard Borchers 1992/1998
Maxim Kontsevich 1992/1998
Tim Gowers 1996/1998
Grigory Perelman 1996/2006 (declined)
Wendelin Werner 2000/2006
Andrei Okounkov 2004/2006
Elon Lindenstrauss 2004/2010
Stanislav Smirnov 2004/2010
Cédric Villani 2008/2010
Artur Avila 2008/2014
In addition, we have brothers La↵orgue (one has the EMS Prize, oneFields) and combinations with other prestigious prizes
The EMS also awards Felix Klein Prize for the exceptional research in thearea of applied mathematics and Otto Neugebauer Prize for the highly
original and influential work in the field of history of mathematics
P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

October 13, 2015

- 13 -EMS Committees
Applied Mathematics
Developing Countries
Education
Electronic Publishing
ERCOM (European Research Centres in the Mathematical Sciences)
EthicsEuropean Solidarity
Meetings
Publications
Raising Public Awareness
Women in Mathematics
P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of TechnologyOctober 13, 2015

- 14 -ERCOM
Europe has probably the densest network of research centers inmathematics. They are very di↵erent; some have a significant permanentsta↵, some are ‘conference factories’ but they all keep very high scientificlevel. Here are some of them:
Stefan Banach International Mathematical Center
Centre International de Rencontres Mathématiques (CIRM)
Erwin Schrödinger International Institute for Mathematical Physics
Euler International Mathematical Institute
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)
Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES)Institut Mittag-Le✏erIsaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciencesand eighteen others
P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

October 13, 2015

- 15 -Further EMS Activities

We support all sorts of mathematical activities having, for instance
EMS Lecturers
EMS Distinguished Speakers
EMS Joint Mathematical Weekends
EMS Summer Schools in Mathematics
cf. http://www.euro-math-soc.eu/news/13/01/10/call-proposals-scientific-activities-2016.
The applications are collected and evaluated by our meetings committee
At our webpage we also run a database of jobs in mathematics

P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of TechnologyOctober 13, 2015

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European Digital Mathematics Library (EuDML) Initiative
Mathematics literature is particular being, at least in principle, eternallyvalid. Europe is taking lead in making this treasure trove digitally
accessible, https://eudml.org/
Gateway to electronic publications and repositories of data providers
12 founding members: EMS, FIZ Karlsruhe, ICMCM Warsaw,
U. of Grenoble, Czech Academy of Sciences, ... ,UMI
Data, tools and services assembled or created in the EU funded
EuDML project (2009-2013)
Contribution to the World Digital Mathematics Library – a WGcreated in Seoul but the EuDML is for the moment the only
functioning component, covering some 6% of the mathematics
literature in the world
Another way in which care about mathematical literature is theZentralblatt für Mathematik which we run together with Springer
and FIZ Karlsruhe
P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

October 13, 2015

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EU-MATHS-IN
Here is another initiative:
A network of Mathematics for Industry and Innovation promotedby the EMS and ECMI (European Consortium for Mathematics inIndustry), http://www.eu-maths-in.eu/Members are national networks in industrial mathematics: France,Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, UK, Ireland,
Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Sweden, and Norway
Service unit for exchanges of mathematical research and exploitation
for innovation, industry, science and society
Bridge between academic research groups and industry, with aEuropean support

P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

October 13, 2015

- 18 -EMS Publishing HouseAt the dawn of the millenium, the EMS started its own publishing house:
presently it publishes 10-15 books per year and 19 journals
among the journals we have our ‘own’, Journal of the EMS or JEMS
which belongs to those with high reputation
the EMS also publishes a Newsletter which o↵ers a lot of interestingreading; its electronic version is freely available at
http://www.ems-ph.org/journals/journal.php?jrn=news
as the publishing house grows we formed recently a Scientific
Advisory Board headed presently by Jakob Yngvason. It is ourintention to make the enterprise stronger

P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

October 13, 2015

- 19 -And this, of course, is not all
we collaborate with the International Mathematical Union andmathematical societies and organizations around the world
we are involved in high mathematical awards such as the Abel Prizeand in various mathematical committees
we are a part of CIMPA, the organization which helps mathematiciansin the developing countries
we use our influence for political lobbying in the European institutionsin the interest of mathematics and science in generaletc., etc.

P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

October 13, 2015

- 20 -That much for mathematics

Let us now look for a recent European initiativeto support excellent science, namely theEuropean Research Council

P. Exner: European Science: Challenges ...

Kochi University of Technology

October 13, 2015

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