2022 ICM satellite coordination group

[Note: while I happen to be the chair of the ICM Structure Committee, I am authoring this blog post as an individual, and not as a representative of that committee or of the IMU, as they do not have jurisdiction over satellite conferences. -T.]

The IMU has just released some updates on the status of the 2022 International Congress of Mathematicians, which was discussed in this previous post:

• The General Assembly will take place in person in Helsinki, Finland, from July 3-4.
• The IMU award ceremony will be held in the same location on July 5.
• The ICM will take place virtually (with free participation) on July 6-14 during the hours 9:00-18:00 CEST, with talks either live or pre-recorded.

Due to the limited time and resources available, the core ICM program will be kept to the bare essentials; the lectures will be streamed but without opportunity for questions or other audience feedback. However, the IMU encourages grassroots efforts to supplement the core program with additional satellite activities, both “traditional” and “non-traditional”. Examples of such satellite activities include:

• “Traditional” satellite conferences, held in person at a time near the ICM. Several such satellite events had already been scheduled; some are still proceeding as planned, such as this satellite conference on formal power series and algebraic combinatorics in India and this satellite conference on probability and mathematical physics in Finland, but others are currently in the process of being relocated, rescheduled, reorganized, or cancelled.
• “Watch parties” or “mirror conferences” hosted by institutions and departments around the world.
• “Sectional overlay conferences”, in which ICM speakers from a specific section (or pair of sections) are invited to present their ICM talk in person in front of a live audience from that section. Several sectional overlay conferences (for Sections 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, and possibly 7) are in the early stages of planning, but there are still plenty of further sections to be covered. Some overlay conferences will be held concurrently with the ICM; others are planned to be held shortly beforehand, and the talks then supplied to the ICM as prerecorded talks. Of course, ICM speakers would not be obligated to attend these conferences (and several of these meetings may also schedule additional events not associated to the ICM).
• Regional satellite events, which would be similar to sectional overlay conferences but focused on a single geographical region rather than a section. Efforts are underway to set up such events in Australia, Boston, Bonn, and possibly Vietnam.
• Q&A sessions or online chats. A Discord channel has been set up (administered by Martin Hairer, Kevin Buzzard, and myself) to discuss the ICM lectures as they are being given; input is welcome on how best to utilize this channel.
• Traditional in-person congresses allocate some space for “short communications” of about 15 minutes each by mathematicians around the world; for instance here is the information for such communciations from the 2018 ICM. Due to limited resources, the IMU will not be able to directly organize such communications for the 2022 ICM, but perhaps there will be a volunteer effort to create a semi-official substitute for this component of the congress as a satellite event.
• Similarly, the local organizing committee has traditionally organized some public lectures during the ICM; these will now have to be hosted by some third party, as an additional satellite event.
• Other creative examples of “non-traditional satellite events”. (For instance, one idea would be to create a wiki-type web site for the ICM in which speakers could supply introductory videos, slides, and other material for their talks; the IMU unfortunately does not have the logistical and technical capability to run this themselves, but one could imagine some third party being able to set this up instead.)

Strictly speaking, satellite events are not officially part of the Congress, and not directly subject to IMU oversight; they also receive no funding or support from the IMU, other than sharing of basic logistical information, and recognition of the satellite conferences on the ICM web site. Thus this (very exceptional and sui generis) congress will differ in format from previous congresses, in that many of the features of the congress that traditionally were managed by the local organizing committee will be outsourced this one time to the broader mathematical community in a highly decentralized fashion.

In order to coordinate the various grassroots efforts to establish such satellite events, Alexei Borodin, Martin Hairer, and myself have set up a satellite coordination group to share information and advice on these events. (It should be noted that while Alexei, Martin and myself serve on either the structure committee or the program committee of the ICM, we are acting here as individuals rather than as official representatives of the IMU.) Anyone who is interested in organizing, hosting, or supporting such an event is welcome to ask to join the group (though I should say that most of the discussion concerns boring logistical issues). Readers are also welcome to discuss broader issues concerning satellites, or the congress as a whole, in the comments to this post. I will also use this space to announce details of satellite events as they become available (most are currently still only in the early stages of planning).