About IMU

IMU is an international non-governmental and non-profit scientific organization, with the purpose of promoting international cooperation in mathematics. It is a member of the International Council for Science (ICSU).

The objectives of the International Mathematical Union (IMU) are:

1. To promote international cooperation in mathematics
2. To support and assist the International Congress of Mathematicians and other international scientific meetings or conferences
3. To encourage and support other international mathematical activities considered likely to contribute to the development of mathematical science in any of its aspects, pure, applied, or educational

Details about IMU

More precise objectives and detailed Information about the organization of IMU can be found in its statutes (and of course in the IMU server that you are currently visiting).

Ongoing activities concernig IMU are published in IMU Bulletins and in the bimonthly newsletter IMU-Net to which everybody can subscribe.

Publications about IMU

There are several publications about the International Mathematical Union.

John Ball, president of IMU for the period 2003-2006, provides a general survey on the work of IMU:

• The IMU and You

• interview about the role of mathematics and the preparations of ICM 2006 in Spain

IMU's former president David Mumford, 1995 - 1998, and Allyn Jackson, Senior Writer and Deputy Editor of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, described the work and structure of IMU in the column »What is IMU?«, published in the Notices of AMS, Nov./Dec. 1994.

• What is the IMU? by Allyn Jackson
• How the IMU Can Work for the Community by David Mumford.

In IMU Bulletin 39, 1995, Olli Lehto, IMU Secretary from 1983 to 1990, gives a short overview about

• IMU - past and present

Olli Lehto has also written the book "Mathematics without borders", a history of the International Mathematical Union, published by Springer in 1998, that is warmly recommended to those interested in the history of IMU.