Talanta 57 (2002) 415–416

Announcement

The Division of Analytical Chemistry of the Federation ofEuropean Chemical Societies

European Analytical Column No. 30 (January 2002)

www.elsevier.com/locate/talanta

The Federation of European Chemical Societies(FECS) comprises a number of Divisions andWorking Parties specializing in certain fields suchas Food Chemistry, Electrochemistry or ChemicalEducation. Among them the Division of Analyti-cal Chemistry (DAC) is one of the largest withrespect to the number of delegates. Each delegateis appointed by a national chemical society in aEuropean Country. A majority of FECS membersocieties is represented in DAC; all societies nothaving established such a link yet are invited todo so. Contacts in analytical communities in non-European countries and in supra-national institu-tions are provided by ‘Observers’, and the DACtakes pride in stating that friendly relations andgood communication exists with these colleaguesand organisations. Delegates and Observers yielda fruitful feedback to their societies and further tothe wider analytical community. Recently someDelegates whose advice has been of advantage tothe Division over many years have retired. We aresure they will continue to lend their support in thefuture when needed. The Division is particularlygrateful that active and dedicated replacementshave been recruited.

Unfortunately the most obvious and very im-portant activity, namely the participation in theopen discussion of DAC, at the Annual Meeting,not only depends on the interest of the Delegatesbut is also a matter of money and time. In thiscontext it helps that every second year the AnnualMeeting is held in conjunction with Euroanalysis,

the European conference on analytical chemistrybiennially organized by one of the DAC membersocieties. The wide scope outline of these confer-ences offers a thorough overview including high-lights in the particular field of interest for eachparticipant, so that there is good motivation fordelegates to attend Euroanalysis. By taking ad-vantage of the weekend air-fares, delegates will bewhere the Annual Meeting takes place and just intime, namely on the Sunday before Euroanalysisis opened the next day.

In the years without Euroanalysis, the AnnualMeeting is held in conjunction with a conferenceto which it is hoped to attract the largest possiblenumber of delegates. These are usually more spe-cialized meetings, with the consequence that anumber of delegates and observers will not beable to participate. 2001 was such a year and wemissed about one third of the normal participa-tion at the Annual Meeting. This is all the moreregrettable since the event followed a conferenceon Education in Analytical Chemistry which wasorganized in Cordoba, Spain, as the first jointmeeting with the DAC of the American ChemicalSociety. It brought together 120 scientists and hassince then been acclaimed as truly excellent. Theparticipants lived in the secluded Colegio Mayorof Cordoba University which provided a perfectlocation for concentrated and intensive discus-sions. The friendly team and the superb hospital-ity of the organizers gave it a very agreeableatmosphere. Unfortunately the meeting started

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Announcement416

just 3 days after the terrorist attacks in the USA;this prevented American colleagues from comingunless they were already staying in Europe as wasProfessor Gary D. Christian of the University ofWashington. The DAC–FECS will continue thecooperation with DAC–ACS and aims to closerrelations between the analytical communities onboth sides of the Atlantic. The interest and mostpositive reactions of the participants about theCordoba meeting has promoted the idea to have asimilar joint conference in another part of Europein about two years time-the first contacts havebeen made and locations are being explored.

During the 2001 Annual Meeting, the regularreports of the Chairman and the Heads of theStudy Groups on the activities, achievements andplans were received and related issues were dis-cussed. Since the Division intends to reduce thepurely organisational efforts by defining generalrules for repeated tasks, in Cordoba the delegatesagreed on several such guidelines. The AnnualMeeting reappointed Professor Valcarcel asChairman of the DAC for a second 3-year periodof office and Dr Korte as Secretary.

New perspectives might develop from the en-deavours to improve the political weight ofFECS— in general but with particular respect tothe European Commission. As a federation ofsocieties, FECS as such lacks in visibility to theindividual chemist when compared to its Divi-sions and Working Parties. These bodies servequite specialized communities leaving, at present,core fields such as organic or physical chemistryunrepresented.

The existence and activity of Divisions andWorking Parties attract attention more easily viathe events held by or associated with them, whereusually the participants are addressed on behalf ofthe organizing and sponsoring bodies. In 2001conferences were organised ‘in cooperation withDAC’ in Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, Greece,France and Spain. This designation indicates aspecific high quality of the meeting and the desirefor international participation. DAC’s inherently

international conference Euroanalysis-12 will takeplace from 8 to 13 September 2002 in Dortmund,Germany. Before the beginning of the year, onlinesubmission of poster abstracts became possible(www.euroanalysis.de) and the programme struc-ture with most of the invited speakers as well asthe regular fee and the student fee was publishedon the web. Poster submission and regular regis-tration are open until 27 June 2002.

The idea of a Grand European Meeting onChemistry, which might attract some ten thou-sand participants, has been considered and dis-cussed. Recently FECS has set up a Task Force toexplore possibilities and implications concerningplace and time, interferences with other large-scale events, finances and acceptance and whatother constraints are relevant. For the time beingthe chances and consequences cannot be assessedreliably. During the period of developing the lay-out of such a FECS congress, the DAC will beglad to contribute to the programme, possibly inthe form of topical sessions or a satellite meeting,possibly focussing on analytical aspects related totopics raised by other Divisions or the organizers.However, for the foreseeable future DAC hasagreed to keep to the schedule of holding Euro-analysis in even years—2002 in Dortmund, Ger-many, 2004 in Salamanca, Spain and 2006somewhere else in Europe. A letter by the Chair-man calling on the delegates and their membersocieties to bid to organise Euroanalysis-14 for2006 has been mailed. At the Annual Meeting inSeptember, the DAC will take the decision on thevenue.

Miguel ValcarcelQuımica Analıtica,

Uni�ersidad, 14071 Cordoba,Spain

Ernst-Heiner KorteISAS, A.-Einstein-Str. 9,

12489 Berlin-Adlershof,Germany