Volume 45, Issue 4

In 1998, Michael Bowen summarized an ICSU Press workshop on electronic publishing [1]. It is reprinted below (in this issue of Chemistry International) and I have been invited to give a 2023 perspective on its conclusions. In 1998, Wendy Warr was chair of the IUPAC Committee on Printed and Electronic Publications (CPEP was the predecessor of the current CPCDS) and Mike Bowen was Secretary. It was an advisory function of the committee to keep-up with how the landscape of electronic publishing was evolving. Before I address those conclusions more specifically, it is worth mentioning some electronic publishing advances of the 1990s. Carnegie Mellon University advertised an opening for an “electronic librarian” as early as 1991. Some electronic products predate the World Wide Web (e.g., arXiv preprints which were first emailed using TeX in 1991). The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) was launched in October 1997. SpringerLink, Elsevier’s ScienceDirect, and PubMed were all available in 1998. The American Chemical Society (ACS) and Chemical Abstracts Service launched ChemPort in December 1997, in collaboration with seven other publishers. ACS had reinvented its journals for the Web with Articles as Soon as Possible (ASAP), search tools to find specific articles easily, and links to databases, and to cited articles through ChemPort. The scene was clearly set for electronic publishing, and so let’s move to the eight 1998 predictions from the ICSU Press workshop.

Following the death of his parents, George Bredig inherited a large steamer trunk inconspicuously tucked away in the basement of his boyhood home in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The trunk was old, and upon opening it, a strong musty smell emerged from within. As he reviewed the contents of the trunk, he discovered an assortment of unpublished letters, original photographs, rare pamphlets and small scientific artifacts. His father Max and grandfather Georg were both gifted physical chemists and it did not take long for George to realize that these papers documented their scientific careers in the years preceding their flight from Nazi Germany.

This manuscript marks the five-year anniversary of IUPAC’s “Top Ten” initiative [1]. The new additions will grow the list of emerging technologies to fifty—all with a powerful potential to make our world more sustainable and all suitable solutions to the current polycrisis [2]. This past summer, the theme of the IUPAC World Chemistry Congress in the Hague was “Connecting Chemical Worlds,” which aligns almost perfectly with the goals of the “Top Ten”—multidisciplinary research is key towards transitioning to net-zero and achieving the United Nation’s Sustainable Development goals by 2030 [3]. Moreover, the selection this year particularly promotes cross-collaboration in chemistry to create exciting emerging technologies that bridge the gap between academia and industry, while continuing the current competitiveness of chemical manufacturers. From a pool of possible ideas, a panel of experts have selected the following list, covering a range of fields from synthesis and polymer chemistry to health and artificial intelligence. The technology readiness level varies along the different solutions—nevertheless, all show a provocative promise to reimagine our world and our society.

IUPAC has released the 2023 Top Ten Emerging Technologies in Chemistry. The goal of this initiative is to showcase the transformative value of chemistry and to inform the general public about the potential of chemical sciences to foster the well-being of Society and the sustainability of our planet. The Jury* —an international panel of scientists with a varied and broad range of expertise- reviewed and discussed the diverse pool of nominations of emerging technologies submitted by researchers from around the globe and selected the final top ten, covering a range of fields from synthesis and polymer chemistry to health and artificial intelligence. These technologies are defined as transformative innovations in between a discovery and a fully-commercialized technology, having outstanding potential to open new opportunities in chemistry, sustainability, and beyond.

The 2023 IUPAC-Zhejiang NHU International Award for Advancements in Green Chemistry was announced and presented during the 49th IUPAC World Chemistry Congress in The Hague, The Netherlands. We congratulate Xile Hu from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland as the experienced chemist award winner, and Mirabbos Hojamberdiev from Technical University Berlin, Germany, Jiayu Peng from Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, and Zhe Zhuang, Department of Chemical and Systems Biology, Stanford University, USA as the young award winners.

The 55th edition of the International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) was held from 16-25 July 2023 in Zurich, Switzerland. The alpine country hosted the competition for the first time, bringing together 350 students from 89 different countries. Despite the competitive spirit, the friendship among all participants was the main characteristic of this international event. The IChO is an annual competition for some of the most talented secondary school chemistry students. Participating countries send a team of four students who compete in two separate exams, a practical laboratory exam and a written theoretical exam. The mission of the IChO is to promote friendly relations between young people from different countries, encouraging cooperation and international understanding. Indeed, the IChO 2023 had a very fitting motto: “Let’s find solutions together!”

In June 2023 CODATA announced that all the WorldFAIR month 12 deliverables have been submitted to the EC HORIZON  agency and are available in their Zenodo community: · WorldFAIR Project (D3.1) Digital recommendations for Chemistry FAIR data policy and practice: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7887283

On 23 and 24 August 2023, the 52nd IUPAC Council was held in The Hague Netherlands along with the IUPAC General Assembly and the 49th World Chemistry Congress, IUPAC|CHAINS.

On Friday, 25 August 2023, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2024-2033 as the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development.