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Czech and Slovak Crystallographic Association President: Secretary : RNDr. Jindřich Hašek, DrSc Doc. RNDr. Radomir Kužel, CSc. Institute
of Macromolecular Chemistry Charles University Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Faculty of Mathematics and Physics Fax:
(420)- 296 809 410
Fax: (420)-224911061 Tel.:
(420)- 296 809 390 Tel.: (420)-221911394 E-mail : |
Prof. Gautam Radhakrishna Desiraju
Solid State and
Structural Chemistry Unit,
Indian Institute of
Science, Bangalore 560 012, India
Praha, 15/9/2011
Dear Professor Desiraju,
Shortly after the 22nd General
Assembly and Congress of the International Union of Crystallography in Madrid
we have decided to submit a new bid for hosting the
25th General Assembly and Congress of the IUCr
in Praha in 2020. The bid is submitted on behalf of
the Regional Committee of IUCr and the Czech and Slovak Crystallographic
Association. The initiative is supported by the main scientific bodies in the
We have been considering organization of this congress since 1999 and we
have already submitted our bids three times at three last congresses but always
lost from different, mainly political and territorial reasons. We are convinced
that these loses were not caused by bad quality of the bids. By contrast, we
were told by many people including the members of the IUCr
Executive committees that they were excellent. It seems that three attempts may
be enough. However, we have never received such a large support as during the
last congress in Madrid. Participants were coming to our booth and expressed their
wishes that the congress should be organized in Prague. According to our
information we also got significant support from many delegates of the
Assembly. Finally, this was not sufficient since India also submitted a
high-quality bid. Moreover the congress has never been to this part of the
World and it definitely deserved it. Anyway, even after the voting many
participants and delegates including some of them who supported Indian bid
asked us to repeat the bid. Therefore, we also feel obliged to do so and we are
submitting a new bid for 2020. We are convinced that Prague has all necessary
conditions for successful congress and also that this city located in the heart
of Europe is an ideal meeting point for all crystallographers of Europe and all
over the World just for the 25th congress.
Prague
- the capital of the Czech Republic with more than a million inhabitants -
belongs to principal European cities with long history. Its original medieval
monuments are attractive for visitors from any part of the world. It can be
reached easily from all European countries by all the traffic means. It has an
excellent public transportation system and well-developed infrastructure.
We
would like to invite crystallographers to the modern and well-equipped Congress
Center that already hosted several large congresses, the largest of which were
NATO Summit in 2002 (8000 participants), Annual Meeting of International Monetary
Fund and World Bank Group (17 000), and some world medical conferences.
The center has five halls for 400 – 4000 people and up to 8 rooms with capacity
~ 100 people (http://www.kcp.cz/an/virtual-tours). The conference center is
positioned in a walking distance from the city center and provides a direct
view of the historical part of the city including the river and the
Praha
has an accommodation capacity of about hundred thousands visitors. Directly in
the
The Czech
and Slovak Crystallographic Association with nearly 400 members publishes it own crystallographic journal “Materials Structure” and organizes
several conferences each year. It initialized a series of international
conferences SIZE-STRAIN, organized the ECM-18 in 1998 with 1200 participants, it
organized a series of protein crystallization courses. In 2004, it organized the
European Powder Diffraction Conference (EPDIC) and the X-ray topography and
high-resolution (XTOP) conference. During these meetings, we succeeded to put
together an organizing team of enthusiastic colleagues and volunteers having
now invaluable experience. Because of its size, the proposed Congress and
General Assembly will be organized in close cooperation with the professional
organization (PCO) with more than 10 years experience with large international
conferences.
It would be a great honor and pleasure for us, if Prague can host the Congress
and General Assembly in 2020.
Sincerely yours,
Radomír Kužel Jindřich Hašek
Chairman
of the Regional Committee of IUCr President of the Czech
and Slovak Crystallographic Association