International Union of Crystallography

The iucr publishes 10 scientific journals, a series of textbooks and, in partnership with oxford university press, a series of books and monographs on Crystallography. The original acta crystallographica journal dates back to 1948, and has, over the years, been split into six sections (a-f) that cover different aspects of Crystallography. Other journals cover more applied Crystallography, Crystallography using high energy light sources and crystallographic data. A flagship journal, iucrj, was launched in 2014 and covers high-profile articles on all aspects of structural science. In 2022, these publications produced almost 13,000 pages of high-quality science. The iucr, in partnership with individual crystallographers, has developed software for checking the crystallographic validity of structures that are submitted to iucr journals, and provides this software without charge to other publishers as a service to the crystallographic community. Iucr journals has allowed electronic submission of articles since 1992 and has been available online since 1999. The iucr published its first "open access" (free to read) article in 2004 and three of its journals are fully open access, with a fourth due to become fully open access in january 2022. The iucr provides full and partial waivers to enable scientists from developing countries to publish their papers in its open-access journals. International tables for Crystallography is the definitive textbook for Crystallography. The original volume, International tables for x-ray Crystallography, was published in 1952. Over the years, additional volumes have been published, covering different aspects of Crystallography. The ninth volume, powder diffraction, was published online and in print in 2019, and a tenth volume, xas, started to appear online in late 2020. In addition to the full volumes, the iucr publishes a (loss-making) teaching edition at an affordable price for students. The iucr/oup book series was launched in 1987 and comprises three sub- series (monographs, texts and symposia) of prestigious volumes. The iucr appoints a selection committee who recommend to the iucr executive committee whether the iucr should support the inclusion of a prospective book in the series. At present, the three series include more than 40 titles.

The iucr africa initiative was launched in 1999 and since then the iucr has put enormous effort into developing opportunities for education and research and building capacity in Crystallography in the african continent. To coincide with the united nations International year of Crystallography in 2014, the iucr launched a major outreach and education initiative, which lead to the appointment of an executive outreach officer to co-ordinate the iucr's outreach and education efforts around the world. The iucr is partnering with unesco on a series of open labs in developing countries, with the aim of nurturing sustainable Crystallography groups, and with the International science council and the International Union of pure and applied physics to create the lightsources for africa, the americas, asia and middle east project (laaamp). Laaamp aims to enhance advanced light sources (adls) and crystallographic sciences in africa, the middle east, se asia, mexico and the caribbean. By doing so, the regions' peoples will benefit from the research that will tackle such devastating viruses as zika, ebola and hiv. Moreover, considerable progress will be achieved towards sustainable sources of clean energy. Each year the iucr sub-committee on the Union calendar considers applications for financial support from schools and workshops around the world. The iucr provides more than usd 100k per year to enable young scientists to attend supported events and also pays the travel costs for visiting professors from other parts of the region to attend the schools to lecture and provide mentorship.

The iucr holds a congress and general assembly for crystallographers every three years. The congress is the major International scientific meeting for crystallographers worldwide. The main programme usually lasts for more than a week, with satellite meetings, schools and workshops being arranged just before or after it, usually in nearby locations. The congress includes three sessions of the general assembly at which the policies of the Union are approved and applied, officers and members of the executive committee are elected and the membership of the twenty-one iucr scientific commissions is ratified for the next triennium. The general assembly also selects the venue for the next-but-one congress. At the congress, the iucr awards the ewald prize for outstanding contributions to the science of Crystallography and, starting in 2021, awarded the w.h. And w.l. Bragg prize to promising early career crystallographers. The iucr president's fund provides funds to assist financially disadvantaged senior scientists from developing countries to attend the iucr congresses.

To advance the science of Crystallography