Editorial
IUPAC Revised
R
ecent issues of Chemistry International, the news magazine of the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), tell of significant upcoming changes in the 80-year-old organization. (One can read the details at http://www.mpac. org.) IUPAC's mission statement is now augmented by 10 long-range goals, which cover the organization's continuing advisory roles in international chemistry issues and in standardized nomenclature, terminology, and methodology. The goals include a welcomed and explicit acknowledgement of IUPAC's responsibilities in addressing the needs of chemical industry as well as those of the academic chemical sciences. Underlying the mission and goal statements are proposed changes in IUPAC's organization and operation that have been strongly debated over the past several years. The issues are candidly set forth in the news report in the May issue of Chemistry International. IUPAC has a large divisional structure accommodating the chemical subspecialties of analytical, inorganic, organic, physical, macromolecular, environmental, and human health. Each of these subspecialties, in turn, has numerous commissions 37 all together; those in analytical chemistry are general aspects, microchemical and trace, separations spectrochemical, electrochemical, radiochemistry equilibrium data and solubility data. The commissions' activities are largely centered on nomenclature and terminology and have produced numerous reports of great value to the international chemistry community. Long-standing criticisms of the commission structure, however, argue that the commissions do not always direct the IUPAC's limited resources toward studying the most significant and timely issues of international chemistry, and that they have involved too few individuals. The strategic recommendations being made to the IUPAC council include termination of all existing commissions by the year 2001 and redirection of IUPAC's
scientific activities to a project-based mode of operation. Projects are to be generated within individual divisions and have a finite lifetime and budget. This is a really serious organizational change, which I applaud. .I captures aspects of setting realistic priorities in human and financial resources and helps ensure timeliness in IUPAC's responsiveness to international needs. The recommendations also raise great challenges most notably that the idea-flow of the "permanent" cadre of commission members must be replaced by the divisions with some other idea- and information-gathering mechanism (s). This is perhaps the weakest link in the new order at this time Another challenge facing IUPAC is to bring to each new project a fresh "geographical rainbow" of volunteers who have the necessary interest, time commitment, and competence. There are other challenges in the new IUPAC mode of operation, but, on the whole, I see the changes as going in the right direction and giving this venerable organization an invigorated leadership in international chemistry. Chemists everywhere owe a debt of gratitude to the recent succession of IUPAC officers and members of the strategy development and implementation committee who have produced the recommendations leading to these changes. Finally, let me do my part in helping the new IUPAC along by noting that suggestions and comments about the proposed changes can be directed to secretariat® iupac.org. I encourage Analytical Chemistry readers to correspond with the officers of the IUPAC's analytical chemistry division about their perceptions of future scientific activities that should be considered, and about their willingness to serve if asked.
Analytical Chemistry News & Features, October 1, 1998 6 2 3 A
