COCI Strategy Meeting
Lincoln College, Oxford University, UK
10 – 12 April 2005
Meeting Minutes, Part 1
Sunday April 10 – Lincoln College
Preliminary Informal Meeting.DAE to lead
1. Welcome and arrangements for the meeting
2. Informal opportunity to discuss the meeting agenda
3. Discussion on arrangements for the Beijing congress.
4. Fabienne Meyers will update us on issues of importance being pursued by the IUPAC Executive, including progress with the Union Advisory Committee.
Discussion topic: Reflections on the unique role of COCI
Responsible: DAE to lead, all to contribute.
Expected outcome: Reflections on the views taken at Brussels i.e. global perspective, focus on capacity building
Attendees: Bernard West, Peter Atkins, David Evans, Mike Booth, Akira Ishitani, Fabienne Meyers, Alan Smith, Colin Humphris, Mark Cesa
1.New Canadian member Bernard West introduced himself. He is a chemical engineer with industrial experience at Imperial Oil, Rhone-Poulenc, and Canadian Colloids and Chemicals. He is past chairman of the Canadian Chemical Producers Association and has man industry association contacts. Through Dr. West’s contacts, COCI and CIC can interact in areas of chemistry, chemical engineering, and chemical technology.
Dr. West is interested in building a COCI-IUPAC project related to Responsible Care. RC was invented in Canada in the early 1980s and adhering companies are currently in the third round of reverification. RC is in over 50 countries today under ICCA guidelines. He is looking for suggestions to make his prospective project unique – currently ICCTA has activities, including training and distribution of information, that would be similar to the activities of an IUPAC RC project.
2.After self-introductions of attendees, Evans said that there would be a review at the Beijing COCI meeting of progress on action items from the 2004 Brussels COCI meeting.
Action: Cesa to re-send the list of Brussels action items to COCI membership.
Some discussion of housekeeping items for the Beijing meeting followed. Members must apply by May 1 2005 for a supporting letter from the Congress for travel visas. Application forms are in the Congress 2nd circular, attached to these minutes. When registering for the Congress, it is necessary to include a mailing address on the form in order to receive acknowledgment.
3.Events at the Beijing meeting – some preliminary discussion of dates most convenient for COCI events followed. A dinner can be held on Monday evening (August 15), and Jinliang Qiao has volunteered his services to host tours as time permits. See further discussion below.
4.Fabienne Meyers reported on the new Union Advisory Committee (UAC). It has been in existence since January 2004 and is composed of one member from each NAO. In 2004 the UAC referred three issues to the NAO’s for comments:
The Value of Chemistry Task Group, chaired by Ed Przybylowicz
The Propagation of Chemistry Task Force, led by Peter Atkins and David Evans
Proposal to establish a new Executive Board to replace the Executive Committee and Bureau.
Very few responses were received. Members from the US and UK described how they responded to the requests for information. The Executive Committee, meeting the week of April 17, has reorganization of IUPAC on its agenda. However, it was pointed out that the UAC has had no opportunity to meet and discuss matters such as the above.
5.Nominations for COCI office are listed below.
6..A request was made for a 1-page summary of the roles and practices of COCI and IUPAC, to provide the basis for establishing interfaces between IUPAC and organizations such as ICCA.
Action: Meyers to prepare a 1 page summary of roles and practices of COCI and IUPAC, with assistance from Humphris.
7.Unique Contributions of COCI – Evans summarized and continued the discussion on this topic from the 2004 COCI strategy meeting at Farnham UK and the annual meeting in Brussels. Evans said that COCI agreed upon a strategic focus in which COCI takes a global perspective with a focus on capacity building, endeavoring to integrate the efforts of national societies, such as best practice sharing in the developing world. COCI is naturally constrained by the fact that members are volunteers and that actions require long time scales; therefore we should “temper our ambition with practicality. Expectations for progress should not be set too high, and project activities should be focused. Evans asked that the members consider the question of whether COCI has a genuine role as we discussed the items on the agenda in the next two days.
Advantages of COCI’s status as a Standing Committee include the ability to interact with all the Divisions, and its greater flexibility in choosing membership than the Divisions. However, COCI does not share with Divisions the ability to participate fully in the Division Presidents meeting.
West noted that in the UK the SCI is exploring its role as well. With scientists having less time for volunteer activities, building productive linkages with other organizations is increasingly difficult. The new SCI executive chairman is Andrew Ladd, replacing John Beacham
Action: Evans to initiate contact with Andrew Ladd to explore future interactions between COCI and SCI.
Humphris said that is difficult to get industrial people to volunteer for organizations such as COCI. Industrial chemists face decreasing support from their companies to allow them to devote time to such activities. He suggested that we try to work through industrial leaders to “plant lots of seeds” so that a few new active members can be found.
Venues for meetings and meals for Monday and Tuesday were reviewed, and the Sunday evening meeting adjourned for dinner.
Monday April 11, Tuesday April 12 - Lincoln College
1.Welcome and introductions
Responsible: DAE
Attendees: Bernard West, Peter Atkins, David Evans, Mike Booth, Akira Ishitani, Fabienne Meyers, Alan Smith, Colin Humphris, Jonas Unger (Tuesday), Mark Cesa
2.Apologies for absence
Responsible: MC
Pokrovsky was unable to attend because of business reasons but has sent messages to Evans with input on appropriate topics (see below.) Alles was unable to find funding to travel for this meeting.
3.Chairman‘s business
Responsible: DAE
Evans summarized the discussion of the previous evening. He emphasized that concrete actions will be needed in all of the main project areas. He thanked the members for their hard work and commitment to the activities of COCI.
4.Minutes of last meeting of COCI – Brussels May 9-11, 2004
Responsible: MC
Paper: MC’s minutes – COCI Brussels Minutes (2) 1.doc
The minutes were reviewed, with no corrections or changes. They will be reviewed officially at the Beijing meeting.
5.Matters arising from the minutes, not taken elsewhere
Responsible: DAE
Action items from the Brussels meeting were quickly reviewed. Among those actions not covered in agenda items below:
1.No funding will be available for Gwaza from UNESCO for an upcoming conference.
2.Smith will prepare an update in June 2005 on new and existing IUPAC projects of interest to industry. Division representatives to COCI (see below) will be invited to assist with descriptions of projects in their Divisions with industrial relevance. Suggestions were made to organize updates around new projects, new projects of interest to industry, and completed projects, and make the summary available electronically. Meyers reported that much of this information is already available in downloadable form.
Action: Smith to prepare next update on new and existing IUPAC projects of interest to industry, by June 2005.
3.A proposal from Pokrovsky is needed as a starting point for raising further funds for production and distribution of DIDAC materials.
6.Budgetary performance and finance
Responsible: MB
Expected outcome: Update on performance against budget, forward look on expenditure for the biennium, expenses for the Beijing meeting, other likely future items of expenditure
Booth handed out two paper documents summarizing COCI operating expenses in 2004-2005 and detailing transactions between November 2003 and present (please contact the Secretary if you would like a copy).
Action: Evans, Booth to contact John Jost at the IUPAC Secretariat to challenge an expense on copying charge for Project Summaries.
Action: Cesa to check with UNESCO to verify receipt of $5900 COCI funding based on upcoming contract.