InternationalMathematicalUnion

This document was prepared by a committee set up by the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union in order to explore the question of how to evaluate and rank the work of individual researchers in the mathematical sciences. This recommendation was endorsed by the IMU General Assembly 2014.

CDC released an update of the Report "Mathematics in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities" as well as two new reports about the current state of mathematics in Latin America and the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. The reports include opportunities and recommendations for new initiatives to support mathematical development in those three regions. 

The International Mathematical Union and the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) jointly constituted a Working Group to study the issue of whether and (in the affirmative case) how both organizations should go forward with a Ranking of Mathematical Journals. After discussing the report at ICIAM 2011 in Vancouver IMU and ICIAM decided to start a blog on mathematical journals which became operational on November 18, 2011. Please consider a contribution to the ongoing discussion.

CEIC produced in 2004 a document, see below, listing various recommendations relating to the changing environment of peer-reviewed journals. This document returns to the subject and offers more details on how journals can best serve the mathematical community and it focusses on how a good mathematics journal should be organized and managed.

The International Council for Science (ICSU) has set up an ad-hoc Review Panel on Science Education charged with providing an assessment of ICSU's past and current activities in relation to science education. The panel is interested in science education activities serving a wide range of audiences and age groups, ranging from young children and students to educators, professionals, and lifelong learners. The panel will provide a report to ICSU's Committee on Scientific Planning and Review (CSPR) summarizing its results in January 2011. The International Mathematical Union contributed its thoughts to this development with a report prepared by its International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI), with Mina Teicher, ICMI Vice President, in charge of this activity, which describes the ideas of the worldwide community of mathematical educators.

Mathematics plays a rapidly increasing role as a universal language for science. Without it, science and technology cannot address the complex issues facing the modern world. At the same time, mathematical illiteracy is growing and interest in the study of mathematics is declining. The World Science Forum therefore calls for an international effort to improve mathematical research, education and awareness in all countries, and asks UNESCO, together with the scientific community, to take the lead in launching such an action.
 

The International Mathematical Union (IMU), together with the John Templeton Foundation, has released a report "Mathematics in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities" on the current state of mathematics in Africa and on opportunities for new initiatives to support mathematical development. The study was prepared by IMU's Developing Strategies Group (DCSG) and financed by the John Templeton Foundation.

The International Mathematical Union (IMU) has released, in cooperation with the International Council of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS), the report "Citation Statistics" which analyzes the use and misuse of citation data in the assessment of scientific research. The report discusses, in particular, the impact factor, the h-index, and variants of these that are often employed to rank not only journals but also individuals, departments, or whole institutions.

The General Assembly of the International Mathematical Union endorses a recommendation of the IMU Committee on Electronic Information and Communication (CEIC) describing its vision of a distributed collection of past mathematical scholarship that will serve the needs of all science, and encourages mathematicians and publishers of mathematics to join together in implementing this vision. The Digital Mathematics Library should include a substantial part of the past literature, and, most importantly, its components should be connected, both to each other and to the current literature. The ultimate goal is to create an enduring network of digital literature, most of which can be seamlessly traversed by all scientists engaged in mathematical research and scholarship.

The General Assembly of the International Mathematical Union endorses a recommendation of the IMU Committee on Electronic Information and Communication (CEIC) on best practices in preparing retrodigitized documents and carrying out retrodigitization projects.

This is a revised version of the 2002 Recommendations, see below, which was endorsed by the IMU Executive Committee on April 24, 2004.

The General Assembly of the International Mathematical Union endorses a booklet prepared by the IMU Committee on Electronic Information and Communication (CEIC) which identifies many of the important changes that are currently happening - due to new technologies - in the ways scientific literature is disseminated and accessed. The booklet recommends a number of best practices for dealing with these issues for those involved with the mathematical literature - mathematicians, librarians, and publishers.