A few years after my move to the University of Newcastle in Australia, I started to realise that sometime in the future I might organise an international chemometrics conference. There were two obvious reasons: I have attended many conferences, all of them very well organised. Clearly, one day, it would be my turn to give back. I also knew that many of my international chemometrics colleagues would not mind at all to be offered a good reason to visit Australia. Being a rather hopeless organiser and a champion procrastinator, I hesitated for as long as possible, and over the years it became clear that it will happen sometime after my retirement. The plan of having a conference in Australia started to take shape at the very small first intercontinental meeting on rotational ambiguity Róbert Rajkó organised in Szeged, Hungary, in 2012. * I suggested then to have second intercontinental meeting on rotational ambiguity (SIMORA) in Seal Rocks in Australia, an amazing place a few fellow chemometricians have visited in the past. Seal Rocks would have been perfect to host some 5 to 10 participants. More concrete plans for a chemometrics conference in Newcastle developed at the CAC 2016 in Barcelona. It was clear that it will be bigger than SIMORA and the name “Topics in Chemometrics”, TIC, was coined. An important idea that arose early was to have session on specific themes, organised by different leaders in those fields who would personally invite potential participants, rather than waiting for abstract submissions which then would be grouped into sessions. The image analysis organisers had the great idea to expand from a purely chemometricians based meeting and invite a few scientists who use image analysis methods for their applied research. These researchers accepted the invitation, but just failed to turn up. It appears that it was not sufficiently interesting for them to attend a chemometrics conference. A dream of mine was to have a free conference. Such a conference will not be organised by professional conference organisers, it had to be done by myself, a pensioner with lots of time on my hands. It also required support from many helpers, Gerda, my wife, one of the outstanding ones. Conference costs that cannot be avoided include venue hire, food and drinks during the conference, and finally, the conference dinner. From the beginning, I planned for some 50 participants which defined the size of the venue and the expected catering costs. With my loose organisation, it was not clear for a long time whether 20 participants would attend, which would have been disappointing, or whether 100 would attend, which would have been beyond my means. There were no sleepless nights over that, but it was a worry for a long time. As it turned out, it all worked out perfectly. I was lucky to find a small number of very generous sponsors: The University of Newcastle, Wiley, Jplus, CSIRO, RACI. There was sufficient money to let the dream come true. The conference was very successful, as attested by many. The pictures, taken by Paul Gemperline, speak for themselves, they show the happy participants as well as the beautiful venue (Fort Scratchly Conference Centre), in the centre of Newcastle right on the Pacific Ocean. In Figures 1-3, we can see the view to the east blocked by the smiling participants; still view to the east with the two important ladies Beata Walczak and Lutgarde Buydens and the organising committee; and the view to the north with the lighthouse, the harbour breakwater and Stockton Beach. Participants came from a dozen countries, it was a truly international meeting. International conferences include many elements, essential ones are the presentation of an award and the organisation of the next meeting. The inaugural “Award for Comprehensive Collaboration in Chemometrics”, instigated by Róbert Rajkó, went to Hamid Abdollahi. Hamid's efforts to send numerous PhD students to many chemometrics lab on the planet clearly make him the deserving recipient. Please note the beautifully designed TIC award in Figure 4. The other essential element, the discussion, and eventually the decision about the next meeting, TIC2019, had to be made. Obviously, this future meeting had to include third intercontinental meeting on rotational ambiguity. Thus, the shortlist for future organisers included the active rotational ambiguity researchers Hamid Abdollahi, Zanjan, Iran, and the Mathias Sawall/Klaus Neymeyr group in Rostock, Germany. The initial decision was to have TIC2019 in Zanjan and TIC2021 in Rostock; however, the tense political situation between Iran and the USA might necessitate a reversal of the order. No decision has been made; as the saying goes: watch this space! I certainly look forward to meeting many of my colleagues at the next TIC, wherever it might be.
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Aug 25, 2022
Jie Zhou + 2
