Volume 46, Issue 4

I first heard about IUPAC in 1972 in undergraduate organic (nomenclature) lectures; I already knew about the Periodic Table from high school days, but I did not make the connection between this chemistry and the organisation named IUPAC until much later. In 1996, I became involved in planning for Australia to bid for a General Assembly (GA)/World Chemistry Congress (WCC); ultimately the bid was successful, and the meeting was held in my home city of Brisbane in July 2001. In the way, I learnt much about the various component parts of IUPAC while the Executive Secretary role, which I held for a trio of combined meetings including an Asian Chemistry Congress plus an Asian Federation of Medicinal Chemistry meeting, brought me into contact with the IUPAC leadership. I also interacted with Titular Members, many volunteers, as well as key movers and shakers within the chemistry field. And I got to know our wonderful current IUPAC staff members Fabienne Meyers and Enid Weatherwax.

As a recent Young Observer (YO) myself (2023), I am honored to have the opportunity to interact with and hear from other Young Observers around the world while collecting feedback for this new series of articles echoing YOs experience being involved in recent IUPAC meetings or projects. Importantly, I am excited to help share these YO’s experiences and reflections about their involvement with IUPAC through this inaugural series in Chemistry International. For reference, “[t]he YO Program provides an opportunity for young scientists to participate in sessions of the IUPAC General Assembly and establish international collaborations, gain knowledge of global research activities, and participate in IUPAC activities (from IUPAC, Young Observer Program See https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/usnciupac-young-observers-program ).” Many thanks are owed to the YOs who have given their energy and time to prepare these responses. I am especially grateful to Bonnie Lawlor and Fabienne Meyers for their assistance with this project and more broadly their work in support of IUPAC and chemists globally. I hope that you will enjoy these pieces, and I look forward to collecting more responses from other YOs as we continue this globally engaged collection!

In 2019, the IUPAC started a quest to select the most interesting emerging technologies in the chemical sciences [1]. Now, this established initiative continues year after year—adding ideas to a list of innovations with an enormous potential to transform fields as diverse as materials science, energy, healthcare, agriculture and computing, among others [2]. Overall, the IUPAC “Top Ten Emerging Technologies in Chemistry” align with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, in a quest to secure a sustainable future and pave the way to a circular economy [3]. This new list delves into new materials, unexplored physical phenomena, and creative solutions to global challenges, including prevalent diseases and the still ongoing energy and fuel crisis. As in the first “Top Ten” paper, the technologies hover over a broad range of readiness—from laboratory discoveries to commercial realities, hence “emerging.” But all of them, carefully curated by a panel of experts nominated by IUPAC, are equally exciting. Read on.

IUPAC has released the 2024 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 The following comprised the panel of judges for the 2024 Top Ten Emerging Technologies in Chemistry: Chair, Michael Droescher, (German Association for the Advancement of Science and Medicine), Jorge Alegre-Cebollada (Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares, Spain), Mamia El-Rhazi, (Université Hassan II de Casablanca, Mohammedia, Morocco), Ehud Keinan (Technion, Israel), Javier García Martínez (Universidad de Alicante, Spain), Rai Kookana (CSIRO Land & Water, Australia), Juliane Sempionatto (Caltech, USA), Molly Shoichet (University of Toronto, Canada), Zhigang Shuai (Tsinghua University, China), Natalia P. Tarasova (D. I. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology, Russia), Kira Welter (Wiley-VCH, Germany), and Bernard West (Life Sciences Ontario, Canada) —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 machine learning. 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 International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and Solvay announce the winners of the 2024 IUPAC-Solvay International Award for Young Chemists, presented for the best Ph.D. theses in the chemical sciences, as described in 1000-word essays.

The 2024 Hanwha-TotalEnergies IUPAC Young Scientist Award, presented at MACRO 2024, has been awarded to Lutz Nuhn and Rongrong Hu.

The Analytical Chemistry Division of IUPAC is inviting nominations for two awards, including: · The IUPAC Emerging Innovator Award in Analytical Chemistry —an award to recognize outstanding work undertaken by an emerging analytical scientist that corresponds to the aims of the Analytical Chemistry Division. · The IUPAC Analytical Chemistry Medal —an award to recognize significant lifetime contribution to the aims of the Analytical Chemistry Division.

Every two years, IUPAC holds an election for its officers and committee members. About 120 individuals are to be elected or reelected either as Titular Members, Associate Members, or National Representatives. Information concerning the voting process and the role of each kind of member is contained in the Union bylaws (see https://iupac.org/who-we-are/organizational-guidelines/).

The latest InChI version 1.07 has been approved by IUPAC and the InChI Trust—a transformational step in our development to support the standard. Now on Github, with a standard MIT license—fully tested for back-compatibility, many bugfixes, and a foundation for future extension and maintenance.

On 7 June 2024, the United Nations proclaimed 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ). According to the proclamation, this year-long, worldwide initiative will “be observed through activities at all levels aimed at increasing public awareness of the importance of quantum science and applications.”