Dear Colleagues and Friends,
One week after the end of the International Symposium on Metal Complexes 2012 (ISMEC2012), I would like to address some words to all those that contributed to the success of this scientific event.
First of all, on behalf of the Scientific and Organizing Committees (above all, Sílvia Chaves and Sérgio Marques), I would like to thank each one of you for your excellent participation. Of course, I also want to to express my gratitude to the President of Instituto Superior Técnico, the President of Sociedade Portuguesa de Química, and the President of Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian for their overwhelming hospitality. Last but not least, I am also grateful to each one of our Sponsors of this event (Centro de Química Estrutural, Turismo de Lisboa, Caixa Geral de Depósitos, I.L.C.-Instrumentos de Laboratório e Científicos, TAP Portugal, Hotel Açores Lisboa, Hovione, Labor Spirit, Porto Cruz, and Banco BPI).
All the participants have contributed to five exciting days of this high-quality scientific forum and stimulating discussions, apart from their contribution to make very enjoyable all the social events such as the welcome reception at the Royal Palace Hotel, the excursion to Sintra, and the conference dinner at the Centro Cultural de Belém with Fado and other musical spots.
There were 5 Plenary Lectures, 10 Keynote Lectures, 51 Oral Communications and 114 posters, the 5th edition of the Pulidori Prize, as well as one Round Table discussion of the ISMEC Group.
About 200 scholars participated in this conference coming from 27 countries, most of them European (Austria Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom) and 10 non-European countries (Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, South Africa, Uruguay, USA).
The Book of Abstract of all these contributions is available online at the conference webpage (ISMEC2012 Acta book), and soon it will also be available online at the Acta of the ISMEC Symposia official website (http://mat521.unime.it/ismecacta/). A selection of the best papers will be published on a special themed issue (the chemistry and applications of metal complexes) of Dalton Transactions (RSC), dedicated to this Conference.
This Symposium appeared as a step forward on the internationalization of the ISMEC Symposia. In fact, although along the history of the previous 22 ISMEC symposia editions we have assisted to an increasing international participation, this has been the first Edition held out of Spain or Italy, with almost the double of the usual number of participants. I hope it has served the main aims, which were the exchange of knowledge about the most recent advances on metal complexes, in view of a wide range of applications from environmental to biomedical purposes, and to improve the international collaborations.
The ISMEC Group round table has dealt with topical subjects like education and training courses in Europe associated with the Group as well as new suggestions for the next ISMEC editions. Some important decisions have been taken so that there are good reasons to be optimistic with regard to the future of our ISMEC Group and Symposia.
Our colleagues from the University of Burgos, Spain, will organize the next ISMEC conference in June 2013. Begoña Garcia will be the Chaiperson of ISMEC2013, and she made already a very nice presentation of the next Conference. Thus we are looking forward to meeting again within one year in this wonderful European city of Burgos.
Wish you all the best,
M. Amélia Santos
(Chairperson of ISMEC2012)
Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon
Lisbon, Portugal
e-mail: masantos@ist.utl.pt |
