Most of the Union's core scientific programs have been built around
the work carried out in its seven Divisions and a large number of Commissions
(currently numbering 37), with support from the Standing Committees and
several Divisional subcommittees. With limited financial resources from
IUPAC, principally to defray costs of travel and administrative expenses,
and far larger in-kind support from their employers, the members of these
IUPAC bodies voluntarily devote enormous amounts of time to advancing chemistry.
Their accomplishments in obtaining international agreement on nomenclature,
symbols, terminology and methodology have produced a worldwide language
of chemistry. Many of these groups continue to establish values for critically
evaluated chemical data, from precise atomic weights to thermodynamic properties,
while others provide physical and chemical characterization of various
substances. Some IUPAC bodies are concerned with criteria for training
and education in specific branches of chemistry, and many bodies traditionally
organize high quality international symposia in a wide range of chemical
fields.
In spite of the widely acclaimed past accomplishments of the Union and
its continuing successes in very many areas, increasing concern has been
expressed by the worldwide chemistry community and by several of IUPAC's
National Adhering Organizations (NAOs) as to the overall impact of the
Union's programs on contemporary problems in chemistry. Over the last decade
there has been much introspective evaluation of the Union's scientific
work, frequent calls to modify the structure of the Divisions and Commissions,
and imposition of a large number of requirements designed to assure that
only projects of high quality and high priority are undertaken. The results
of these efforts have been largely disappointing in that they have resulted
in little change in the organization and management of the Union's work.
Moreover, these continuing efforts to change first one, then another IUPAC
body have proved frustrating and sometimes demeaning to many of the dedicated
individuals who voluntarily carry out this work.
Following detailed discussions among the IUPAC Officers and the Division
Presidents and Vice-Presidents during 1996-97, the Secretary General presented
an analysis of the problems and made recommendations for major changes
in both organization and management of the scientific activities of the
Union. The Secretary General's Report [SGR] was presented to the Executive
Committee in April 1997 and after considerable discussion the basic concepts
were accepted and the SDIC was assigned the task of assessing the feasibility
of specific proposals and recommending in detail how the desired changes
could be accomplished. The full SGR is given in Appendix 3. The Report
has been widely disseminated within IUPAC bodies and among the Union's
NAOs, and many comments on the Report have been provided to the SDIC to
help guide its work and recommendations.
The SDIC's analysis of the present organization and of the means by
which its projects are initiated and managed has highlighted a number of
factors that are of concern, as follows:
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Responsibility for initiation, development and management of IUPAC's projects
is divided among seven Division Committees and 37 Commissions. |
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Largely because of this highly decentralized structure and resulting fragmentation
of areas of responsibility ("turf"), it has frequently proved
difficult, time-consuming and sometimes impossible to develop interdisciplinary
projects in spite of the acknowledged importance of such projects to the
future of chemistry and to the future of IUPAC. |
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About half of the Union's limited financial resources are devoted
to supporting the Commissions, with no clear relation between resource
utilization and specific projects. Although individual expenditures are
quite modest, collectively the sums are significant. A large fraction of
the approximately $525,000 cost of a typical General Assembly pays for
travel and subsistence of Titular Members, and much of the Divisions' collective
biennial budgets of about $420,000 is devoted to meetings of Commissions
in the years between General Assemblies. |
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There has been a proliferation of projects (numbering more than 400
in the last biennium) of varying quality and urgency, often approved routinely
without stringent outside review. There is little incentive to limit the
number of projects or give serious consideration to priorities since there
is virtually no relation between the importance of a project and the (often
meager) financial resources allocated to it. |
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Ideas for projects usually arise within Commissions, sometimes because
the Commission has established a clear international need, at other times
simply because an individual Member is interested in the subject and willing
to devote time to pursuing the project. Overall, there has been relatively
little formal effort to solicit views from NAOs, chemical societies and
the worldwide chemistry community. Refereeing of proposed projects outside
IUPAC has been spotty, and retrospective evaluation has been uneven. |
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Although the Secretariat has, over the years, done an excellent job
of providing administrative and logistical services to all IUPAC bodies,
it has not been staffed to provide professional help to groups carrying
out scientific projects. Even very modest professional staff assistance
could be valuable in developing projects and in insuring their timely completion. |
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The process by which Members of Commissions and Division Committees
are selected has long given rise outside the Union to the view expressed
in 1979 that IUPAC is a "charmed circle". Although the Union
has made efforts to limit the length of terms in order to allow more people
to participate, the procedure by which Members elect their own successors
with no formal outside input strengthens the perception of an inward-looking
organization. |
The Secretary General's Report addressed many of these perceived deficiencies
and advocated the conversion of most of the Union's scientific activities
"from a primarily static Commission structure to one that is largely
based on time-limited Commissions formed to carry out specific, well defined
tasks." The Executive Committee approved this concept but recognized
that many details needed to be examined. The SDIC was asked [Tasks 3 and
4] to determine whether such a radical change in IUPAC operations would
be feasible and if so to provide specific recommendations on how to achieve
this objective.
The SDIC concludes that it will be feasible to reorient much of the
Union's scientific work to a project-driven system carried out by short-term
Task Groups that report to Division Committees, with much less emphasis
on long-term Commissions. However, implementation will require adoption
of an integrated program, as described below. The timeframe for implementation
has been carefully thought out in order to move the Union forward as rapidly
as possible but to allow adequate time for completion of existing projects
and for phased conversion from the present Division/Commission structure
to one that is more dynamic.