※ A message from Professor Niels Olhoff, President of ISSMO (10 October 2001)
Dear ISSMO Member,
INVITATION OF SUGGESTIONS FOR WORKING GROUPS IN ISSMO!
At the General Meeting held during WCSMO-4 in Dalian, China in June 2001, the members of ISSMO were asked to come up with suggestions for new committees of ISSMO and memberships of these. Short time after this, Dr. P. Gosling of UK in a letter to the Executive Committee (EC) of ISSMO suggested that committees could relate to thematic groups and submitted a formal proposal of introducing the concept of “Working Groups” in ISSMO.
The main idea of the proposal is to bring academics from both within ISSMO and currently outside who have similar research interests together to foster a closer working community in support of optimization. Each Working Group (WG) should comprise a chairman and a secretary who would be responsible for reporting to ISSMO at its World Congresses (WCSMOs) and acting as a focal point for anyone outside ISSMO. Members of the WG should support research intiatives in their area through collaboration etc.
The EC of ISSMO sees WGs as instruments to increase international research collaboration and to invigorate ISSMO. The EC therefore warmly supports the idea of introducing WGs in ISSMO, and with this letter the Committee wishes to invite interested members of ISSMO to submit suggestions for topics and memberships of WGs, set the WGs running and propose a first reporting session at WCSMO-5. In between ISSMO’s World Congresses the WGs could operate virtually through email and the www, with members meeting up at other common conferences. Obviously, as in fact has already been done, typical themes for WGs could be proposed such as Approximation Methods, Topology Optimization, etc.
The Executive Committee of ISSMO does not wish to act as a filter for possible themes for working groups. Thus, the sole criterion whether a WG is a viable one should be the number of participants it attracts and the level of their participation. However, to keep ISSMO operation reasonably tidy, the EC suggests that the initiators of a WG should be obligated to give the EC a formal notice that a WG is starting. The notice should include the WG charter even if only tentative to be edited as needed later.
Possible initiators of a WG are kindly asked to email the formal notice regarding their WG to the Secretary General of ISSMO.
Sincerely yours,
Niels Olhoff, President of ISSMO