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Where does IUPAC fit in? This is a legitimate question we should ask when contemplating the missions, programs, and initiatives of other organizations. In the main feature on page 2, David StC Black, former IUPAC secretary general and, since 2012, ICSU secretary general shows us what ICSU does and how IUPAC fits in.

The mission of the International Council for Science (ICSU) is to strengthen international science for the benefit of society. Its long-term vision is for a world where excellence in science is effectively translated into policymaking and socioeconomic development. In such a world, universal and equitable access to scientific data and information would be a reality and all countries would have the scientific capacity to use these and to contribute to the new generation of knowledge.

Among the many problems that plague the region, the western states of the Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan suffer most from water scarcity. The three states depend on three major trans-boundary surface and groundwater reservoirs, which historically supplied 75% or more of water but nowadays are critically low because of overuse, lack of rainfall, and climate change, which magnify the water stress in this arid region. Consequently, the shared water resources are under heavy natural and man-made pressures, in terms of quantity and quality, affecting every aspect of life from ecosystems and the environment, to food security and health.

On 20 May, World Metrology Day commemorates the anniversary of the signing of the Metre Convention in 1875. This treaty provides the basis for a coherent measurement system worldwide.

On 27 January 2014, the IUPAC Division on Chemistry and the Environment announced that the 2014 IUPAC International Award for Advances in Harmonized Approaches to Crop Protection Chemistry will be presented to Prof. Árpád Ambrus of the National Food Chain Safety Office of Hungary.

The 2014 IUPAC-Richter Prize in Medicinal Chemistry has been awarded to Dr. Helmut Buschmann. Dr. Buschmann received this award in recognition of his outstanding creative contributions to the invention, discovery and development of the novel analgesic drug tapentadol (Nucynta™, Palexia™), first approved in 2008.

In February 2014, the Executive Editorial Board of Polymer International and the IUPAC Polymer Division announced that William Dichtel from Cornell University was the fourth winner of the Polymer International-IUPAC Award for Creativity in Applied Polymer Science or Polymer Technology.

Robert A. Alberty, professor emeritus in the Department of Chemistry and former dean of MIT’s School of Science—whose seminal contributions to the thermodynamics and kinetics of biochemical reactions are still at the forefront of chemistry—passed away on 18 January 2014, at the age of 92.

Typographical symbols of chemical elements were established in the early 19th century and they soon spread throughout the textbooks of chemistry. This spread, however, was not an exemplary adoption of international standards. Rather, a garden variety of individual notations soon emerged. This is a brief story of their eradication.