The European Mathematical Society (EMS) is a European organization dedicated to the development of mathematics in Europe. Its members are different mathematical societies in Europe, academic institutions and individual mathematicians. The current president is Jan Philip Solovej,[1] professor at the Department of Mathematics at the University of Copenhagen.
Goals
The Society seeks to serve all kinds of mathematicians in universities, research institutes and other forms of higher education. Its aims are to
Promote mathematical research, both pure and applied,
Assist and advise on problems of mathematical education,
Concern itself with the broader relations of mathematics to society,
Foster interaction between mathematicians of different countries,
Establish a sense of identity amongst European mathematicians,
Represent the mathematical community in supra-national institutions.
Four EMS Presidents: Volker Mehrmann (2019–2023), Jean-Pierre Bourguignon (1995-1998), Marta Sanz-Solé (2011–2014), and Pavel Exner (2015–2018) at EMS 30th anniversary celebration at International Centre for Mathematical Sciences in Edinburgh
The precursor to the EMS, the European Mathematical Council was founded in 1978[4] at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Helsinki. This informal federation of mathematical societies was chaired by Sir Michael Atiyah. The European Mathematical Society was founded on 28 October 1990 in Mądralin near Warsaw, Poland, with Friedrich Hirzebruch as founding President. Initially, the EMS had 27 member societies. The first European Congress of Mathematics (ECM) was held at the Sorbonne and Panthéon-Sorbonne universities in Paris in 1992, and is now held every 4 years at different locations around Europe, organised by the EMS. ECM 2020 was postponed for a year due to the covid pandemic took place in 2021 in Portorož in Slovenia. The last ECM (2024) was in Seville.
The governing body[6] of the EMS is its Council, which comprises delegates representing all of the societies which are themselves members of the EMS, along with delegates representing the institutional and individual EMS members. The Council meets every 2 years, and appoints the President and Executive Committee who are responsible for the running of the society.
Besides the Executive Committee, the EMS has standing committees on:[7] Applications and Interdisciplinary Relations, Developing Countries, Mathematical Education, ERCOM (Directors of European Research Centres in the Mathematical Sciences), Ethics, European Solidarity, Meetings, Publications and Electronic Dissemination, Raising Public Awareness of Mathematics,[8] Women in Mathematics.
The EMS's rules are set down in its Statutes[9] and Bylaws.[10] The EMS is headquartered at the University of Helsinki.
Prizes
The European Congress of Mathematics (ECM) is held every four years under the Society's auspices, at which ten EMS Prizes are awarded to "recognize excellent contributions in Mathematics by young researchers not older than 35 years".[11]
Since 2000, the Felix Klein Prize (endowed by the Institute for Industrial Mathematics in Kaiserslautern) has been awarded to "a young scientist or a small group of young scientists (normally under the age of 38) for using sophisticated methods to give an outstanding solution, which meets with the complete satisfaction of industry, to a concrete and difficult industrial problem."
Since 2012, the Otto Neugebauer Prize (endowed by Springer Verlag) has been awarded to a researcher or group of researchers '"for highly original and influential work in the field of history of mathematics that enhances our understanding of either the development of mathematics or a particular mathematical subject in any period and in any geographical region".
The following are the awardees so far,[12] (a F symbol denotes mathematicians who later earned a Fields Medal).
EMS Press has also published over 200 books in mathematics since 2003, in both print and digital formats.[15]
In addition, since 2021 it publishes the Magazine of the European Mathematical Society, often called EMS Magazine (ISSN 2747-7894, eISSN 2747-7908), formerly known as the Newsletter of the European Mathematical Society (ISSN 1027-488X), which was established in 1991. It features news and expositions of recent developments in mathematical research.[16][17] It is quarterly and open access.[18] The current editor-in-chief is
Fernando da Costa (2020–) (succeeding Valentin Zagrebnov (2016–2020)).[19]
The Encyclopedia of Mathematics is also sponsored by the EMS.
