Welcome message from the Congress Chair
Dear Colleagues,
Our original plans for WATOC 2020 were derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Assuming that science will triumph over the coronavirus in time, we are now planning to hold the congress in 2022. On behalf of the Organizing Committee of WATOC 2020, it is my pleasure to request that you reserve the week of July 3, 2022 for the 12th Triennial Congress of the World Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists (watoc.net) in Vancouver, Canada.
The first WATOC Congress in 1987 attracted about 475 scientists to Budapest. More than 1500 registered for the eleventh Congress in 2017 in Munich. In the span of three decades, the triennial WATOC congresses have become a major international gathering of computational and theoretical chemists.
The WATOC 2020 program will feature 12 plenary lectures, 252 invited lectures, 180 invited communications and a large number of poster presentations. With input from the International Advisory Committee, the Organizing Committee has taken gender, geography (52 countries) and research subject area into consideration to achieve a high diversity of invited speakers. The program will cover a broad range of topics in method development and applications to chemistry, biochemistry, catalysis, materials and nanoscience.
The lexicon of our field has expanded dramatically since the first WATOC Congress in 1987 when few of the participants were aware of the impending impact of methods based on density functional theory. In 2022, the keywords will include artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum computing, computer-aided chemical design and the full range of contemporary topics in electronic structure theory and reaction dynamics.
The Thursday, July 7th program will feature two sessions devoted to the teaching of computational and theoretical chemistry. This will be a first for a WATOC Congress.
Be sure to check periodically our website (watoc2020.ca) for more information, as it becomes available. We look forward to welcoming you to Vancouver, Canada’s Pacific gateway, in July 2022.
With best wishes,
Russell J. Boyd
Congress Chair
