The Constitution then goes on to list aims. What is not yet clear among us is a further articulation of this aim. As I have attempted to indicate using the Australian experience as an example, I think our interests are genuinely wider than purely in competitions, and we have seen this in some other countries. For example the Waterloo centre has a much wider interest than in mathematics competitions. More specific questions can be raised as to what we see as a useful curriculum for talented students.
Most people see the IMO as testing the pinnacle of some form of international syllabus.
If we ask any IMO team leader we would get a rather definitive reply as to whether a certain problem could be set at IMO, even though no formal attempt has ever been made to write out an IMO syllabus. The Tournament of Towns is less inhibited. At a higher level the Tournament of Towns runs summer conferences, where secondary students work on what we might be called research problems, certainly problems whose solutions are unknown even to the problem creators. Indeed, here we are training the new breed of mathematician, who can lead tecnological development into the next generation. Within ICMI we are sometimes seen as curiosities or eccentrics by the broader group of mathematics educators.