TO THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF CRYSTALLOGRAPHY
Some
photos of Erice and surroundings have been made
available by Michael Quayle and Gareth Lewis, Bristol, participants at Erice
1998. Some more are being added from time to time; three by Martin Ulrich Schmidt, Clariant, Frankfurt
a. Main, participant at both Erice 1998 and 1999.
Professor
Antonino Zichichi, born in Trapani and now Research Director at CERN, Geneva
realized that Erice, sited on a hilltop, 751 m above sea level, could represent
an ideal place for specialised meetings with a limited number of participants.
Isolation, a wealth of archaeological sites, and the echoes of 3000 years of
history and prestige are the main attractions on this mountain town, dominating
Trapani and the extreme north-western edge of Sicily.
In
1963 Professor Zichichi began organizing yearly meetings on Subnuclear Physics,
bringing together young and famous physicists. Later he founded the
"Ettore Majorana" Centre, named after a young and promising Sicilian
physicist working in the thirties with Fermi. He disappeared in 1938 under
mysterious circumstances, during an overnight ferry trip to Naples where he had
just been appointed full professor of Physics.
The
Centre, which has become a Foundation in 1998,
is a non-profit organization which has gained wide reputation for its
excellent facilities; each year hundreds of scientists are invited or selected
by those responsible for meetings in about 100 disciplines, named "International Schools" (a
misleading and unfortunate title). Each School organizes advanced study
institutes or - more rarily - workshops ( officially called "courses"
) at intervals of one to five years. However, new activities have recently
begun: each year, near the end of August, the international press has reported
on the peace talks among top nuclear physicists - mainly from China, Russia and
USA - invited to Erice by Prof. Zichichi with the aim of discussing and
encouraging a nuclear weapon ban. In addition, scientists from all over the
world have tried to start "residential" projects in Erice in the
newly established World Research Laboratory.
In
Erice, a progressive effort at restoring ancient monasteries and churches has
produced very agreable places where scientists and their meetings can be
hosted. Of course, it is a difficult task to transform the buildings to attain
modern standards and yet preserve their original atmosphere. There is a large main lecture
hall with 250 seats, three halls with 100, 80 and 60 seats respectively and
a few smaller ones. The maximum number of participants, in order to hold an
effective meeting in Erice, would be 120. Accommodation is provided mainly in
twin-bedded rooms with bath or shower.
The
idea of an International School of Crystallography (acronym ISCoC) was
suggested in 1972 by Professor Michael M. Woolfson, FRS, York University, UK to
Lodovico Riva di Sanseverino, now at Bologna University. Since 1974,
crystallographic meetings at Erice have been held each year (except 1979) and
have dealt with a variety of topics (see the summary of activities).
After
a short, stimulating directorship by Nobel Laureate Dorothy Hodgkin, the
direction of the ISCoC has been assumed by Professor Tom L Blundell, FRS, then
at Birkbeck College, London, since Oct. 1996 at the Department of Biochemistry,
Cambridge University, UK, who has taken up the responsibility for the
scientific planning. Topics and dates have been selected well over the end of
the century; proposals for future activities are welcome.
The
scientific Director of a Course, who is nominated by Professor Blundell, is a
dynamic leader in the topic indicated by the course title; he/she should be
able to contact crystallographers as well as experts from other fields.
Non-crystallographers are required when - as it is often the case - the meeting
deals with frontier topics. The Director of a Course is responsible for
inviting the lecturers and for planning an attractive scientific programme;
maximum collaboration is assured by the Executive Secretary of the ISCoC,
Lodovico Riva di Sanseverino till 1994, Paola Spadon since. John J. Irwin, now at the University
of California in S. Francisco, USA has joined the local organizing committee
ininterruptly since 1998, in his role of IT expert. Neera Borkakoti, Medivir, UK has entered the local staff in June
2004, taking care of the liaisons with the industrial research community.
Thousands
of posters announcing each meeting are circulated a year in advance to personal
addresses and it is customary to receive 2 to 3 times as many applications as
there are places available. The selection is not only based on qualification
but also on geographical distribution. The most cosmopolitan course, in 1977,
was attended by 81 participants from 33 countries and in 1988, 206 scientists
(an exceptional number - as ever with Molecular Biologists) came from 37
countries. In April 1990, two crystallographic courses were run simultaneously
in two different lecture halls. During the spring 1996 only 19 days had elapsed
when a second course started, while in 1997 and 1999 two courses have again
been held simultaneously. The same has happened in May 2000 when the Molecular
Biologists reached the record number of 227, and in 2004.. In May 2002 a “baby” School born out
of Crystallography has been initiated
by Georges Tsoucaris, Paris : the International School of Molecular and
Structural Archaeology, holding its first meeting in parallel with the crystallography
meeting on Drug Design.
English
is the sole language for all events during the courses.
The
general policy for producing teaching material consists of requesting each
invited lecturer to write a 5-10 pages summary of his/her contribution,
including a comprehensive list of references. The collected lecture notes are
distributed to participants on their arrival; in 1987 the book was mailed to
home addresses well in advance, without any positive effect: only 5%
participants had opened the book before arriving at Erice……
Lecture
notes provide a general guide, but the extended bibliography is a unique tool
for those stimulated into increasing their acquaintance with the topic after
attending a meeting. Thirtythree such photoset reproduced volumes and twentyfive
proper books, published by international printing companies, have appeared in
the past thirtyone years. Proper monographs play an essential role when the
subject of a meeting is a pioneering initiative.
Due
to their interdisciplinary character, Erice crystallographic courses are
attended by specialists from various fields. This is frequently the starting
point for closer scientific contacts: both lecturers and "students"
are encouraged to spend the full period of the course in Erice and the
person-to-person exchange of ideas and expertise often provokes and/or
stimulates future collaborative research projects.
School
financing is composed of fees ( about 50% ), international grants ( 35% ) and
local sources while expenditure consists of subsistence ( about 65% ),
lecturers' travel ( 15% ), modern Pc’s rentals (10%) and organizational costs.
The well known difficulty of fund raising is increased owing to the fact that
the meetings are on a yearly basis. The organizers are involved in a continuous
effort, trying to increase the number of grants: several national institutions
have been convinced to share the travel and/or the subsistence costs. As an
example, in addition to having paid travel for the 21 invited speakers, the
organising committee for the 28th course was able to waive fees to
65 out of the 93 participants.
Grants
are commonly available for scientists under 35 of age, specially if nationals
of Countries within Nato and the European Community. Some funds have been recently available for nationals of Eastern European Countries.
Local organisers dedicate special care to
providing a knowledge of local culture and history, as well as to overcoming
national discrimination. To help improve the efficiency of the course, a
questionnaire is distributed and participants are invited to express (anonymously)
any criticism and to make any suggestion they might feel necessary. A careful
reading of a report based on the answers to this questionnaire can be of great
help to the organizers of succeeding events.
We have an overall figure of merit ranging from 0 to 4. Questionnaires filled by participants in the Molecular Biology Courses (May
2000) resulted in a record score of 3.18; translated into common words, 78%
participants went away totally happy with all aspects of the event! The score has reached 3.21 in June 2001 and
3.27 in June 2002. The success of this last event is best expressed in terms of
the average score of 88 calculated after examination of 89 answers to the question (added for the first
time to the text) "How do you
score (0-100, 100 maximum) the overall value of the meeting to you ?". These two figures have improved in 2003, reaching respectively 3.39 and 85, and
in 2004, 3.44 and 89.8.
Nearly
500 world renown scientists have been invited to lecture, some several times; twelve
of them have become Nobel Laureates after having been invited at Erice by
the crystallography organizers.
A
deep sense of gratitude is due to Directors and co-organisers of these
meetings; without their generous, time-consuming efforts, the crystallographic
activity in Erice would never have become popular. Some satisfaction can be
derived from a table of statistics.
Posted
by Lodovico Riva di Sanseverino in Dec 1994 and updated on Oct 24, 1996, 22
June and 15 Sept 1997, 1 July, 11 Oct, 11 Dec 1998, 2 Nov 1999, 29 Dec 2000,
20 June 2001, 17 Oct 2002, 11 Sept 2004
Email riva@geomin.unibo.it; fax +39 051 209 4904
