The International Commission on Mathematical Instruction
    ICMI 
    Bulletin No. 50 
    June 2001

    PME's Richard Skemp Memorial Fund

    Gilah Leder

    This year the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME) is celebrating its 25th anniversary. The group was established in 1976 at ICME-3 in Karlsruhe and is an affiliated subgroup of ICMI, the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction.

    The major goals of the group are:

    • to promote international contacts and the exchange of scientific information in the psychology of mathematics education;
    • to promote and stimulate interdisciplinary research in the aforesaid area, with the cooperation of psychologists, mathematicians and teachers;
    • to further a deeper insight into the psychological aspects of teaching and learning mathematics and the implications thereof.

    The annual conference is PME's main activity.

    To encourage and facilitate participation from "academics who find difficulty in attending the PME conference for racial, political or philosophical reasons and those from developing countries that are under represented within PME", a special fund was created in the late 1980s. In 1995, to honour the work of Richard Skemp - a past President of PME - the fund was renamed the Richard Skemp Memorial Support Fund, soon shortened to the Skemp Fund.

    Donations to the fund have come from PME funds, collections during the annual conference, from PME members paying a (voluntary) levy on registration fees, from special grants obtained by the organisers of different conferences from local sources, and from various universities - including the University of Warwick where Richard Skemp worked for many years.

    Over the years the number of applications to the Fund has increased substantially: from 1 in 1987 to over 20 in 2001. In total, close to 60 000 USD has been distributed to successful applicants. Guidelines for the Skemp fund are available from the PME homepage at

    http://igpme.tripod.com

    Gilah Leder
    President of PME (1998-2001)
    Member of ICMI Executive Committee (1995-2002)
    Institute for Advanced Study, La Trobe University
    Bundoora, Victoria 3086 Australia g.leder@latrobe.edu.au