One of the most significant mathematically related events since my last report is the finalization of the National Strategy Review in the Mathematical Sciences. In my previous columns I reported on the progress of the Working Party and Advisory Committee involved in this review. The final report of the Working Party, chaired by Noel Barton, was completed in October and then submitted to Ian Sloan, as chair of the National Committee for Mathematics. The report, entitled Mathematical Sciences: Adding to Australia , is a substantial document of 111 pages covering most aspects of the mathematical sciences in Australia past, present and future. It makes 19 detailed recommendations aimed at a variety of bodies for the development of mathematics over the next fifteen years. Ian, on the 30th October, submitted the report to the Australian Research Council, the body that had originally commissioned the review, noting that
I understand that Max Brennan, the current Chair of the ARC, has now read and approved the report and publication by the ARC is likely to occur before Christmas. The Australian Mathematical Sciences Council and the National Committee will jointly organise a symposium to promote the Review on Friday February the 23rd at the University of New South Wales. The organising committee for this symposium consists of Jan Thomas, President of the AMSC as convenor, Noel Barton and Ian Sloan. It is likely that the Review Report will be formally launched immediately prior to the meeting but the nature of this launch remains to be clarified.
Another important recent development is the annual announcement of ARC funding through Large Grants and Fellowships. It is always difficult to get an immediate picture of the funding for the mathematical sciences through the large grant mechanism because of the structure of the ARC discipline panels. Although a sustantial part of the funding for mathematical research comes through grants by the Physical Sciences Panel specific projects are often funded through the Engineering Panel or the Biological Sciences Panel. At first sight, however, it appears to have been another successful year for mathematics. The picture with the Fellowships is much clearer. A total of 11 Fellowships, either postdoctoral, research or senior research fellowships, were awarded to mathematicians, and that is 11 out of a grand total of 90. The fact that mathematics received such a large proportion is a clear reflection of the quality of our applicants and is also an indication of the insufficiency of opportunities for people wishing to pursue a career in mathematics. Let us hope that the Strategy Review will have a positive effect in this respect.
A quite different recognition of the quality of Australian mathematical research was the award this month of the first Institute Henri Poincar{\'e} /Gauthier-Villars Prize for Nonlinear Analysis to the AustMS past president Neil Trudinger. The prize was for his paper `Isoperimetric inequalities for quermassintegrals', Ann.\ Inst.\ Henri Poincar{\'e}-Analyse Nonlineaire, VII (1994) 411-425.
Finally plans for a bid to host the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in the year 2002 are proceeding. There is likely to be a bid from Beijing and so there could well be another Sino-Australian contest. In addition ANZIAM has indicated its interest in bidding for the International Conference in Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) in the year 2003. The most recent meeting in this latter series was heldthis year in Hamburg and ANZIAM. It is a slightly smaller affair than the ICM but still attracts some 2-3 thousand delegates. Both bids have to be submitted during 1996, the ICIAM bid is due by May and the ICM bid by November.