The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety will dis­trib­ute funds from NSF to approx­i­mate­ly 20 U.S. sci­en­tists to attend the 13th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis in Paris, 11–16 July 2004.

Con­gress par­tic­i­pants and younger cat­alyt­ic sci­en­tists will be giv­en pri­or­i­ty. Grantees will be select­ed by a com­mit­tee of cat­alyt­ic sci­en­tists only to com­pen­sate for the low­est avail­able air­fare costs by US car­ri­er.

All U. S. Sci­en­tists work­ing in catal­y­sis are invit­ed to apply for sup­port. A brief vita (two pages) should also be includ­ed along with a state­ment con­cern­ing their needs and par­tic­i­pa­tion in the meet­ing. All requests should be mailed (or email) to :
NSF ICC Trav­el, c/o Bea Ouimette, Dept. Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, Univ. Mass­a­chu­setts, Amherst. MA 01003, or email: put ICC Trav­el in the Sub­ject line. The appli­ca­tions must arrive before 15 May 2004. Include your email address. Selec­tion will be made by 1 June 2004. This will be an “equal oppor­tu­ni­ty” selec­tion inde­pen­dent of the race, col­or, or nation­al ori­gin of the appli­cant. More infor­ma­tion is avail­able at

Details

 
NSF Sup­port for US Par­tic­i­pants at the 13th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis

Introduction

 
The 13th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis will be held in Paris, France on July 11–16, 2004. These meet­ings are held every four years, dat­ing back to their incep­tion in Philadel­phia, PA in 1956. Sub­se­quent meet­ings have been held in Paris, Ams­ter­dam, Moscow, Palm Beach, Lon­don, Tokyo, Berlin, Cal­gary, Bal­ti­more and, most recent­ly, Grana­da, Spain. The atten­dance at these meet­ings has shown a large increase due to a renewed world inter­est in the syn­the­sis of petro­le­um based prod­ucts and spe­cial­ty chem­i­cals, as well as catal­y­sis’ increas­ing role in envi­ron­men­tal con­trols and process effi­cien­cy. It is expect­ed that atten­dance at the 2004 meet­ing will exceed the 1,200, the atten­dance in Bal­ti­more and Grana­da.

This sup­port for US cat­alyt­ic sci­en­tists will include only reim­burse­ment for air­fare between the U.S. and Paris, France by US car­ri­ers.

Selection Process

 
If a trav­el grant is award­ed, the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety will adver­tise the award, includ­ing appli­ca­tion pro­ce­dures in the Newslet­ter of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, Chem­i­cal and Engi­neer­ing News, and on the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety’s Web site (http://www.nacatsoc.org). Announce­ments will be sent to all aca­d­e­m­ic per­sons whose names may not be on the mem­ber­ship list but of whom we are aware. The names of such per­sons are avail­able from atten­dees at recent North Amer­i­can meet­ings. Every effort will be made to ensure par­tic­i­pa­tion by women and minor­i­ty groups. The announce­ment will spec­i­fy that U.S. flag car­ri­ers must be used.

To avoid con­flict of inter­ests, grantees will be select­ed by a com­mit­tee con­sist­ing indus­tri­al researchers in catal­y­sis. These three peo­ple are well informed of uni­ver­si­ty activ­i­ties in catal­y­sis. The grant will be admin­is­tered by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mass­a­chu­setts under the super­vi­sion of Prof. William Cur­tis Con­ner, For­eign Sec­re­tary of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety.

The Com­mit­tee will be expect­ed to give (a) first pri­or­i­ty to per­sons who have been invit­ed to present papers and, (b) sec­ond pri­or­i­ty to those who have had papers accept­ed for pre­sen­ta­tion at the Con­gress, and © third pri­or­i­ty to those not qual­i­fy­ing above, but who have a spe­cial func­tion, e.g., those who have been select­ed to chair ses­sions. Pri­or­i­ty will also be giv­en to requests by promis­ing younger work­ers who are not yet well estab­lished. The Com­mit­tee will give con­sid­er­a­tion to pro­fes­sion­al accom­plish­ments or the poten­tial of each appli­cant and attempt to give due atten­tion to a rea­son­able age and geo­graph­ic dis­tri­b­u­tion.
The Com­mit­tee will dis­crim­i­nate against no one on the grounds of race, col­or, or nation­al ori­gin.

The International Congress on Catalysis

 
The orga­ni­za­tion that over­sees these meet­ings is the Coun­cil of the Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis. There are present­ly over 25 sig­na­ture coun­tries with­in this orga­ni­za­tion and this num­ber is on the increase. Coun­tries in South and North Amer­i­ca, West­ern and East­ern Europe, Asia and the Pacif­ic Basin are each rep­re­sent­ed. The Unit­ed States is cur­rent­ly rep­re­sent­ed in the Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress through two per­ma­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

The scope of the 13th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress will be focused on the top­ic of “Catal­y­sis and 21st Cen­tu­ry Chal­lenges – Basic Sci­ence and the Needs of Soci­ety”. See the link http://www.13icc.jussieu.fr