Editorial – From the desk of Marta Civil, Member of the ICMI EC 2021-2024

My experience at the XVI CIAEM conference

I write this editorial a few days after my return from participating in the XVI CIAEM conference in Lima, Peru. This conference is organized by the Inter-American Committee of Mathematics Education (IACME), an ICMI regional affiliate organization. Below, Angel Ruiz provides more information on this conference from the point of view of a number of participants, countries represented and other aspects or the program. In my editorial I want to give my personal perspective on the conference in the hopes to encourage all of you to consider attending the next CIAEM, which will be in 2027 in Monterrey, Mexico. This was my first CIAEM and I regret not having attended prior ones. To say that this was an impressive conference would be an understatement. Not only was the organization excellent but the variety and content of the sessions were amazing. Practically all sessions were given in Spanish or Portuguese and included seasoned researchers as well as emergent scholars. There were several session formats, including the plenaries, invited sessions, and posters but also workshops, short courses, presentations, thematic sessions, etc. This conference offered a wonderful opportunity to learn about the work happening primarily in many countries in the Americas.

In her plenary presentation, Soledad Estrella (Chile), described the potential of implementing online Lesson Study to transcend borders as she showed examples of a collaboration between Chilean and Brazilian teachers, students, and researchers. I thought this was a very original approach that really showed the power of technology (in this case online communication) to connect classrooms in different parts of the world allowing for rich conversations around the teaching and learning of mathematics across geographic contexts. Uldarico Malaspina (Peru) presented an engaging plenary on some of the opportunities and challenges in teacher education. His examples ranged over several domains and levels in mathematics and included a warning on the use of seemingly “realistic” problems, such as one involving a dolphin moving along a quadratic function. Intrigued? Check out his paper on the conference website. Uldarico’s presentation provides many valuable insights, one of which in particular caught my attention, which is the need to prepare teachers in our teacher education programs not just to solve problems but also to identify problems.
 
I also attended several presentations by emerging scholars, mostly doctoral or master’s students. All these presentations provided a rigorous discussion of the state of the field in their topic of choice, whether it was the role of context in teacher education programs, or the concept of inclusion in mathematics education, or a decolonization project with a group of mathematics teachers, to name just a few of the topics addressed in the many presentations.
 
As was to be expected, many sessions made reference to the legacy of Ubiratan D’ Ambrosio. The opening session on the second day of the conference was dedicated to Ubi’s work with the presentation by Marcelo Borba (Brazil) and Daniel Orey (Brazil / USA) on the book “Ubiratan D’ Ambrosio and mathematics education: Trajectory, legacy and future.”  I also want to point out two speakers who said a few words in that session and whose message I found very powerful, Claudia Maria Lara-Galo (Guatemala) and Jeser Caleb Candray (El Salvador). Claudia shared that thanks to the impact of Ubi’s work, the national curriculum in mathematics in Guatemalas has ethnomathematics as one of its components. As she noted, “the study of ethnomathematics since childhood is a window of hope.” Similarly building on Ubi’s legacy, Jeser made a call for the need for our research to have a social and cultural commitment.
 
Finally, I want to close this editorial commenting on the presentation by Nelly León (Venezuela), who as Angel Ruiz mentions in his piece, was one of the recipients of the Marshall Stone award presented at the conference. Nelly is also one of the two coordinators of CANP 2 (Central America and the Caribbean). The other coordinator is Yuri Morales (Costa Rica), who was also at the conference. It was a pleasure for me to be able to meet in person with the two of them and to attend Nelly’s invited talk. In her presentation, Nelly talked about aspects of the mathematics curriculum in Venezuela with an emphasis on education for sustainable development. For example, she talked about the fashion industry, a topic that is likely to be of interest to the adolescent learner and yet is one that has serious implications in terms of sustainable development. She provided several resources to discuss this topic and how mathematics is relevant is such discussions. There was a lively discussion with the audience at the end and at one point the idea of quality education came up, to which Nelly said, “una educación no inclusiva no es una educación de calidad (a non-inclusive education is not a quality education).” I leave you with these words and invite you to see the many resources on the conference as listed in Angel’s piece in this newsletter.

With less than a year to go work on every aspect of ICME-15 is ramping up.
The review process for TSG submissions is underway. Whether or not you submitted a proposal you can plan your participation in two TSGs – one from Strand A and one from Strand B – now. The TSG Description Papers and access to the TSG Submission Portal is via the Congress website, www.icme15.org.

Discussion Group and Workshop proposals are open and will remain so until December 31, 2023. Details of these activities and the submission portal are available on the website.

Sydney is renowned for its vibrant culture, awe-inspiring scenery, and rich history. It is the ideal host city for this prestigious international gathering. In addition to the scientific program, we have an exciting lineup of social events and excursions being planned, providing delegates with an opportunity to immerse themselves in the best of this magnificent city and its surroundings. The networking opportunities during your stay in Sydney will undoubtedly lead to valuable and lasting connections.

Mark your calendar and make plans to be part of ICME-15 from July 7 to 14, 2024, in Sydney. Come and be counted with us! It is not too soon to register! Early bird registration closes on February 15, 2024.

Register now.

International mathematics education journals with increasingly good impact factors
Susanne Prediger, Member-at-large of the ICMI EC
 
Whether we like it or not, in many university systems all over the world, individual career opportunities (e.g., in tenure track procedures) and institutional university evaluations strongly rely on simplified (easy to measure) indicators of quality.
One group of indicators tries to capture the quality of the journals in which we publish. Of course, insiders can judge the quality of a journal by holistic expert judgments of long-term reputation and profile (for expert judgments in mathematics education journal rankings, see e.g., Toerner & Arzarello, 2012; Niven & Otten, 2017).

In contrast, the discipline-overarching evaluation systems in university institutions often rely on more simplified quantitative measures. Most often, they simply count how often papers are cited (for individual papers or accumulated to the papers of a journal).
The most influential indicator for citations accumulated for journals is Clarivate’s impact factor that counts the citations for the papers in the last two year in all journals in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) or Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) and determines rates with the number of published papers (with slightly changing procedures every year).

For a long time, international mathematics education research journals had low impact factors because only very few of these journals were included in the index (so citations were often not counted). This has now substantially changed, and we see an increasing number of mathematics education journals included in the indices, and thereby also considerable impact factors:
 
Two-year impact factor published in 2023
·       Educational Studies in Mathematics: 3.2
·       ZDM – Mathematics Education:  3.0
·       Journal for Research in Mathematics Education: 2.8
·       International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education: 2.2
·       Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education: 2.1
·       Mathematical Thinking and Learning 1.6
·       Journal of Mathematical Behavior: 1.7
 
Compared to some journals outside of mathematics education:
·       International Journal of STEM Education: 6.7
·       Learning and Instruction: 6.2
·       Science Education 4.3
·       Journal of Teacher Education: 4.1
·       Teachers and Teaching: 3.1
 
Although the comparison reveals that established journals in other disciplines still have higher impact factors, mathematics education journals have started to catch up, and in many institutions, this contributes to a better standing of mathematics education research within the institution. 
We all can contribute to further developing the standing of mathematics education research in our institutions in terms of simplified quantitative measures by contributing to further increases of the impact factors.
 
As authors, we can contribute to increase the impact factors of mathematics education journals by:
·       submitting our best pieces of research to the SSCI-indexed mathematics education journals (rather than going to journals of other disciplines)
·       citing many mathematics education papers published in the last two years in math ed journals in SSCI and ESCI (if we can choose between citing other sources or these technically preferred sources)
As reviewers, we can contribute by:
·       supporting authors in finding the most relevant mathematics education references from the last year (this also contributes to the quicker spread of the ideas)
As editors of journals, we can contribute do this by:
·       allowing more references (e.g., by excluding references from the word limitation counts)
 
Of course, these are mainly strategic considerations, but they can also help to spread good research more quickly within the community. And while we do that, we should not forget that we should mainly continue to strive for real research quality of our publications, by providing deep contributions to theory generation, innovative instructional designs, high methodological rigor, and relevant and interesting empirical findings. This striving for real quality is most important for the development of the academic discipline and for each of its scholars.
 
References
 
^{Toerner, G., & Arzarello, F. (2012). Grading mathematics education research journals. EMS Newsletter, December 2012, 52–54.       
Niven, R. A., & Otten, S. (2017). Assessing journal quality in mathematics education. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 48(4), 348–368. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5951/jresematheduc.48.4.0348}
 

Report on ICTMT-16
Chronis Kynigos

The 16th International Conference on Technology in Mathematics Teaching took place in Athens (June 7-10, 2023) adopting a transformational approach to mathematics education. There was intense focus and discussion on perspectives trying to make sense of mathematics education in an era of intense, unpredictable, complex, ill-defined societal and digital transformation.

Key questions addressed were:

• Can digital technologies become an integral tool in the ways rationality and mathematical thinking are cultivated in schools, transforming from an academic to a citizenship paradigm?
• How can we use digital media to instill rationality and mathematical understanding in individual and collective citizenship?
• What is the value of mathematics in the so-called 21st century skills movement in education focusing on trans-disciplinarity and the grappling with socio-scientific issues?
• What can STEM and STEAM bring to mathematics education in this context? How can programming, computational thinking and modelling bring added educational value to the teaching and learning of mathematics?
• What kind of educational practices and uses of digital media can we expect to value in the digital transformation era?

The Keynote speakers, Nathalie Sinclair and Osama Swindan, addressed Aesthetics and Augmented Reality respectively, but jointly, the connection between theory and practice around using digital media for teaching, investigating, and learning mathematics, as a fertile ground to discuss the challenges to come and possible pathways for the next years in mathematics education. In a social environment that changes in multiple directions, what does academic research (theory) gain from the study of practice in domains like the role of teachers and students, the teaching profession, the curriculum design, the learning outcomes concerning competencies, assessment of the learning and teaching procedure, functionalities of novel digital tools, etc.? And does practice benefit from new theoretical approaches, or classical ones implemented innovatively, and how? The panelists, A. Clark-Wilson, C. Kynigos, M. Mavrikis, C. Bokhove, Y. Yang, C. Hoyles, R. Noss, S. Abrantes Garcêz Palha, M. Milrad, brought forward issues related to Design, Analytics and A.I. in learning environments based on the use of digital media.

Report on MERGA 45
Merrilyn Goos, ICMI Vice-President

The 45th annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia was held in Newcastle, a lively port city to the north of Sydney, from July 2-6, 2023. Delegates enjoyed stimulating keynote addresses from Colleen Vale, Rochelle Gutiérrez, and Mellony Graven along with the usual program of research reports, symposia, workshops, and short communications.

The conference also celebrated a number of awards:

MERGA life membership – Jaguthsing (Daya) Dindyal
MERGA Research Award for outstanding contribution to mathematics education research – Peter Sullivan, Janette Bobis, Ann Downton, Sharyn Livy, and James Russo
Beth Southwell Practical Implications Award – Jill Fielding, Saidat Adeniji, and Penelope Baker
MERGA Early Career Award: Sze Looi Chin

The 2024 MERGA conference will be held on the Gold Coast from June 30-July 4, just before ICME-15 opens in Sydney.

MERGA Research Award recipients Ann Downton, Sharyn Livy, James Russo and Janette Bobis with MERGA President Katie Makar.

Report from CERME 13 in Budapest and PME 46 in Haifa in July 2023
Susanne Prediger, Member-at-large of the ICMI EC

 
In July 2023, the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education (ERME, a regional affiliate organization of ICMI) has gathered in a face-to-face conference, CERME 13. We had so much been waiting for this, for four and a half years, since February 2019!

More than 900 participants (not only from Europe, but from all over the world) visited the lovely city of Budapest (with the university campus right at the Danube river) to work together for six days. Many more researchers had wanted to come, but had to be rejected due to space limitations. Beyond the interesting plenaries and panel, a remarkable plenary activity was contributed by a Jazz musician, a former pupil of a Budapest mathematical specialist school. She explained impressively how much mathematics influenced her structural understanding of the music she plays. Isn’t that characteristic for Hungary, with its strong tradition of engaging school students with mathematical complexity and structure? The only disappointment in an excellently organized conference: no dancing at the last evening.

It is the exceptional working group structure of CERME that attracts so many participants: Most of the conference time (seven sessions of 90-120 minutes each) is spent in one of the 28 Thematic Working Groups in which the CERME spirit of communication, cooperation, and collaboration is enacted: Conference papers are submitted in advance, reviewed, revised, re-reviewed, re-revised, and then published prior to the conference. All participants are expected to read the papers in advance, and indeed, most participants really do it. This allows intense discussions in which collective thoughts and future research plans can accumulate over the week. What an intellectual pleasure!

The thanks for organizing this lovely conference go to the Local Organizing Committee, led by Csaba Csapodi, Katalin Gosztonyi, and Ödön Vancsó, as well as to the International Program Committee, led by Paul Drijvers and Hanna Palmer. But the main work is conducted by more than 120 working group leaders, what an amazing commitment within the community and for the community! The date was not ideal, as CERME took place in the week right before PME. So, the flights on Friday and Saturday from Budapest to Haifa were full of mathematics education researchers. Next time, CERME will be back to normal dates, in February 2025 in Bolzano, Italy.

 
 
The International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME, a thematic affiliate organization of ICMI) held a conference in 2022, trying to continue the schedule of annual meetings. Whereas the conference in Alicante 2022 was organized in a hybrid format, the 2023 conference in Haifa was a 97% face-to-face conference, with only selected inputs broadcasted online from abroad, and several hundred participants on site. The community is still experimenting and negotiating how to relate face-to-face events (with their immense opportunities of informal communication) with the increased accessibility for many participants through hybrid formats. For myself personally, I consider the informal conversations in the face-to-face breaks as a highly relevant part of conference experiences in which I learn a lot.

The University of Haifa was a remarkable conference location, at the top of a mountain overseeing the whole region. The meeting room on the 29th floor of the university Eshkol tower was thereby particularly worth visiting. The university garden as well as the beach site gave lovely places for gatherings in the evening (including the dancing at the gala dinner that we had missed in Budapest).

Like CERME, PME had highly interesting plenary lectures and a panel. But beyond this, the program formats are more varied than at CERME, with regular and short research reports, posters, workshops, discussion groups, and research forums. In this way, PME provides the space for presenting well-consolidated research findings, but also for letting new research ideas and strategies emerge and be collectively discussed. For many years, the focus has not been only on psychological perspectives, but also includes political, socio-cultural, and design perspectives. The topic of this annual meeting was to nurture a stronger research focus on sustainability, and it is interesting to learn about the different approaches for doing this.

The acknowledgment goes to Michal Ayalon, Roza Leikin, and their local organizing committee for their marvelous local organization, and to the international program committee who did all the work of distributing and prioritizing reviews, a process that has immensely improved in quality in the last years.

The XVI CIAEM in Lima was a great success
Ángel Ruiz
President, Inter-American Committee of Mathematics Education
 
From July 30 to August 4, 2023, the XVI Inter-American Conference of Mathematics Education (XVI CIAEM) was held in Peru at the University of Lima. The first thing to highlight is that this was the first major post-pandemic multinational congress in the Americas that was fully face-to-face. From the outset, this modality became a great challenge for a region greatly affected by the pandemic, nationally, institutionally, and individually. The efforts that had to be made were greater in the midst of many uncertainties, including political ones. But the process was completed with extraordinary success.
 
From a reception of nearly 800 full-text submissions of papers, 500 were approved, from more than 1000 authors from 28 countries. More than 200 reviewers and academic directors participated in a rigorous blind review process that lasted 8 months. Most of the approved papers were finally presented in Lima. In Lima, a community of 1,000 people was brought together, including researchers, teachers, session coordinators, students, and various organizers. These numbers were unimaginable when the organization began.
 
The invited program included plenary lectures, a plenary round table, a Ubiratan D'Ambrosio special session, parallel conferences, mini-courses, and dialogues. An inspiring message (video clip, with Spanish subtitles) from Frederick Leung, in his capacity as President of ICMI, was delivered at the opening session.
 
During the event, the Luis Santaló (Luis Carlos Arboleda, Colombia) and Marshall Stone (Nelly León from Venezuela and Sarah González from the Dominican Republic) Awards were presented.
 
There were exhibitions and sessions of books and technological resources, information sessions, and group meetings including one of the Central American and Caribbean Mathematics Education Network (REDUMATE) born in CANP 2 (in 2012).
 
A CIAEM General Assembly elected new governing bodies, consistent with the vigorous development of CIAEM in the last 15 years (a third stage in the history of this organization -founded in 1961): an International Council and an Executive Team. These will begin their functions on January 1, 2024, and continue until December 31, 2027.
 
It was announced that the XVII CIAEM will be in November 2027 in Monterrey, Mexico, and the IV Congress of Mathematics Education of Central America and the Caribbean will be held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, November 3-7, 2025. Information was also presented concerning ICME-15.
 
This XVI CIAEM, held in Lima 57 years after the II CIAEM (1966) was held there, meant a powerful boost to mathematics education in the Americas, in a scenario that for various reasons constitutes a tipping point for education, culture and life on the planet. It is an inescapable reference.
 
All materials are available at:

• Official website: https://xvi.ciaem-iacme.org/
• Presentation and author site: https://xvi-ponencias.ciaem-iacme.org/index.php/xviciaem/xviciaem/schedConf/presentations
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ciaemredumate

Publication of the 24th ICMI Study on “School Mathematics Curriculum Reforms: Challenges, Changes and Opportunities”.
Yoshinori Shimizu and Renuka Vithal, editors

We are really happy to announce that finally the volume of ICMI Study 24 has been published and is in open access at: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-13548-4

ICMI Study 24 provides clear evidence that school mathematics curriculum reforms are taking place in many countries around the world in the recent past. Although contexts vary significantly the study shows how much could be learnt from deeper and more substantial reflections and research about different aspects of these reforms. Reforms have been large-scale involving an education system as a whole, at a national, state, district or regional level in which mathematical curricula, standards or frameworks have been developed and implemented. Changes have taken place at all levels of mathematics in the school educational system from pre-primary through senior secondary. School mathematics reforms are often conducted with changes in all different aspects of the curriculum: mathematics content, pedagogy, teaching and learning resources (e.g., texts and technologies), and assessment and examinations.
There have been different influences on school mathematics curriculum reforms over time. During the mid-twentieth century school mathematics curriculum reforms were shaped by developments within the discipline of mathematics and by the ideas of some mathematicians. The prime example, that of the New-Math reform, took place in the particular historical context of the “cold war” and colonialism. It became a mathematical movement that spread to many countries around the world with different influences on national curricula and practical implementations in schools. The character of this reform and its challenges has provided many lessons for later mathematics curriculum reform efforts. In the second half of the twentieth century there have been influences from outside mathematics, that is, developments in other disciplines, most notably, psychology. Studies and theories in behaviourism, the rise and development of cognitive science and constructivism, to name a few, have especially impacted pedagogical approaches advocated in mathematics curriculum reforms. Other trends in mathematics curriculum reforms include problem solving, and back to basics (among others).

More recent influences on mathematics curriculum reforms have come from other areas, such as large international studies focusing on student achievements. These studies have enabled comparisons of mathematics curricula across many countries and generated particular conceptions (such as mathematics literacy), which have found their way into mathematics curriculum reforms. Nowadays international comparative studies like the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) (Mullis et al., 2016) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) (OECD, 2016), which attract a great deal of public attention and media focusing on student and teacher performance in mathematics education are impacting and shaping school mathematics curriculum reforms while countries or regions both compete and share curriculum policies, materials and approaches.

ICMI Study 24 demonstrates there are a diversity of studies and findings from international experience and research that can and does influence the nature of curriculum changes, and the possibilities of educational reform and its implementation: curricular design results; a revised role for components in the teaching of mathematics (e.g., mathematics content, pedagogy, and assessment); the role of technology; and new cognitive, sociocultural and sociopolitical perspectives. Considerations of curriculum reforms from various perspectives and constructs (mathematical literacy or competencies, for instance) raises many issues, from a scientific, political and cultural point of view, which need to be taken into account by communities of researchers, teachers and policy-makers involved in school mathematics reforms.

There are many studies conducted in different parts of the world about issues of mathematics curriculum reforms and their implementation with findings that can be further systematized, compared and studied. The way curricula are elaborated, proposed, changed and reorganized needs to be developed as a major scholarly area of research in mathematics education. This ICMI Study allowed for a more informed and comprehensive analysis of the roles of different actors and of the many aspects influencing and shaping mathematics curriculum reforms that are taking (or have taken) place; and of the possibilities and means to tackle a curricular reform in the current scenario we live in and unfolding future developments.

Launching the 27th ICMI Study on Mathematics Education and the Socio-Ecological
Frederick Leung, President of ICMI
 
I am happy to announce the launching of a new ICMI Study, namely the 27th ICMI Study on Mathematics Education and the Socio-Ecological. This envisioned theme of Mathematics Education and the Socio-Ecological is a timely one for exploring and consolidating theoretical knowledge in the area internationally, and for informing practice in mathematics education. Through the socio-ecological lens, research and practice that connect with social, political, and ecological (including environmental) issues and related ethical concerns, as well as their relations to mathematical knowledge and mathematics education, are valued.
 
The 27th ICMI Study will highlight three aims: 1) to gather state-of-the-art scholarship in socio-ecological mathematics education around the world and to engage in across-perspective dialogues; 2) to explore the different ways in which a theorization of the socio-ecological influences the focus and methodological approaches of mathematics education research; and 3) to provide insight into the practical implications of socio-ecological research associated with the mathematics curriculum, pedagogy, teacher preparation and education-related policies, beyond traditional approaches.
 
It is my pleasure to present two distinguished scholars in the field, Professor Alf Coles from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, and Professor Kate le Roux from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, who will serve as Co-Chairs of the Study to lead an International Program Committee (IPC) to guide us through the Study in exploring Mathematics Education from socio-ecological perspectives. The list of IPC members, who have been working in this area of research and who come from a variety of theoretical backgrounds and geographic areas, can be found at the end of this message.
 
As in all ICMI Studies, an IPC meeting will be arranged soon to initiate the Study, where the different aspects and emphases of the Study will be mapped out. A Discussion Document (DD) will be compiled out of the IPC meeting, and announcement will then be sent to scholars in various parts of the world, inviting those working in this area to attend a Study Conference and offer their expertise in providing insights on different aspects of the Study. A Study Volume will be produced at the end of the Study.
 
Meanwhile, if you have any comments or suggestions about this 27th ICMI Study, please do not hesitate to contact Alf (Alf.Coles@bristol.ac.uk) or Kate (kate.leroux@uct.ac.za).
 
IPC members of the 27th ICMI Study on Mathematics Education and the Socio-Ecological:

• Alf Coles (UK) Co-chair
• Kate le Roux (South Africa) Co-chair
• Marcelo Borba (Brazil)
• Arindam Bose  (India)
• Vince Geiger (Australia)
• Rochelle Gutiérrez (USA)
• Mariam Makramalla (Egypt)
• Nathalie Sinclair (Canada)
• Armando Solares-Rojas (Mexico)
• Paola Valero (Sweden)
• Catherine Vistro-Yu (Philippines)
• Frederick Leung (Hong Kong) ex-officio President of ICMI
• Jean-Luc Dorier (Switzerland) ex-officio Secretary-General of ICMI

ICMI AMOR Updates
https://www.mathunion.org/icmi/awards/amor

The ICMI AMOR project aims at building online resources reflecting highly significant and influential research in mathematics education at an international level, that could serve as a reference not only for researchers in the field, but also for educators, teachers, curriculum developers and policy makers and other agents in the field. In order to build our resources ICMI has decided to focus on each Felix Klein, Hans Freudenthal and Emma Castelnuovo ICMI Awardee, through what we have called the AMOR (Awardees Multimedia Online Resources) project.

Recently, the Celia Hoyles Unit was completed by an Epilogue in the form of a 30 minute interview of Celia by Nurià Planas.

We are also happy to announce that the Terezinha Nunes Unit has been created with module 0 and 4 modules and is now available here.

Three units are complete: Michèle Artigue’s, Yves Chevallard’s and Anna Sfard’s. The Guy Brousseau Unit is nearly finished and work on Ubiratan D’Ambrosio’s has just started.
 
A discussion group about AMOR will be held at ICME-15.

At its meeting in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2022, the 19th IMU General Assembly voted to accept the bid from the United States of America to host ICM 2026 and the 20th IMU General Assembly, with Philadelphia as the venue for the ICM and New York City for the General Assembly.
The dates for the ICM and the GA are now final:

• The 20th IMU General Assembly will be held in New York City, USA, on July 20-21, 2026.
• ICM 2026 will take place over July 23-30, 2026 in Philadelphia, USA.

The official website of the Congress is https://www.icm2026.org.
The official logo of ICM 2026 is:

The ICM 2026 Program Committee Chair will be Claire Voisin, CNRS, Institut de Mathématiques de Jussieu-Paris Rive Gauche, Paris, France.

The Commission for Developing Countries (CDC) has the mandate to manage all initiatives of the IMU in support of mathematics in developing and economically disadvantaged countries. It held its first in-person meeting of the 2023-2026 term between March 12-14, 2023, in Berlin.

The members of CDC for the period 2023-2026 are:
·       Andrea Solotar, the President, Argentina
·       Ludovic Rifford, the Secretary for Policy, France
·       Jose Maria P. Balmaceda, the Secretary for Grants, Philippines
·       Mahouton Norbert Hounkonnou Benin
·       Le Tuan Hoa, Vietnam
·       Mariel Saez, Chile
·       Dayue Che, China
·       K.N. Raghavan, India
·       Anjum Halai, Pakistan
·       Hiraku Nakajima, the President of IMU, Japan
·       Tamar Ziegler, the CDC liaison of IMU Executive Committee, Israel 

This meeting was the occasion to discuss in detail all possibilities of funding offered by CDC along with partner institutions and to recall the strong commitment of CDC in all those programs that can be distributed as follows:

Grants to Institutions

• Volunteer Lecturer Program (next deadline December 1, 2023)
• Library Assistance Scheme (no fixed deadline)

Grants for Conferences and Projects

• Conference Support Program (next deadline October 1, 2023 for conferences starting after February 1, 2024)

Grants to Individuals

• Abel Visiting Scholar Program (next deadline December 31, 2023 for visits between May 1 and August 31, 2024)
• Individual Travel Support Program (next deadline October 1, 2023 for research visits between January 15, 2024 and January 15, 2025)

Graduate Scholarships

• IMU-Breakout Graduate Fellowship Program
• Graduate Research Assistantships in Developing Countries (GRAID) Program

Mathematicians and mathematics educators based in developing countries are strongly encouraged to apply to the above calls for funding and check out the CDC website. They should not hesitate to contact CDC for further details via email: cdc.grants@mathunion.org.

International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development 2024-2033
 
On 25 August the United Nations, in a meeting of its General Assembly, proclaimed the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (IDSSD) 2024–2033.
 
This is a great outcome of the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development (IYBSSD 2022), of which the IMU is a founding union.
 
More information regarding the proclamation can be found here. The full text of the resolution can be found here.

Cayen Arceo, ICMI representative for the Philippines
 
The Mathematical Society of the Philippines celebrates its 50th Year

The Mathematical Society of the Philippines (MSP), Inc. is a non-stock, non-profit organization founded in 1973, and the 2023 Convention marks its 50th year as the country’s largest professional organization dedicated to the promotion of mathematics and mathematics education. The last on-site convention was held in 2019, while the annual conventions in 2021 and 2022 were conducted virtually. It is quite fortuitous that the first time the MSP would hold a completely face-to-face national convention after the pandemic coincided with its golden anniversary. Running up to the big event held in June 2023, webinars were organized in partnership with the MSP Regional Chapters as tributes to pillars of Philippine mathematics: Severino Gervacio, Bienvenido Nebres, Fidel Nemenzo, and Polly Sy.
 
The annual convention opened with popular lectures given by Dr Ma Louise Antonette de las Penas (Symmetrical Patterns: Studies and Discoveries) and Dr Wilfredo Alangui (Everything everywhere about ethnomathematics and its future in the Philippines), followed by dedicated talks on mathematics education and mathematics in industry given by Dr Catherine Vistro-Yu (Revisiting Problem-posing as a Pedagogical Tool in Developing Higher Cognitive Skills in Mathematics) and Mr Christian Edmund L. Chua, respectively. Almost 200 researchers, educators and students attended, with more than half delivering plenary, contributed and poster presentations.

“How to Pose It?” – A Lecture by Dr Catherine Vistro-Yu

Dr. Catherine Vistro-Yu is a Professor and the Program Coordinator for Mathematics Education at the Department of Mathematics, Ateneo de Manila University, former President of the Philippine Council of Mathematics Teacher Educators (MATHTED), and former Philippine Country Representative to and Executive Committee member of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI). On August 2, 2023, she gave a talk on problem-posing. Titled How to Pose It? (With Apologies to George Polya): Problem Posing as a Pedagogical Tool for Developing Higher Cognitive Skills, it was a continuation of the talk she delivered at the 2023 MSP Annual Convention. The open forum at the convention was quite lively, so that it was seen fit for Dr Yu to do a second part. Organized by the MSP and hosted by De La Salle University, the second talk was held in hybrid format and again saw animated discussion among the onsite and online attendees. This is the first collaborative activity among the MSP, MATHTED, the Mathematics Teachers Association of the Philippines (MTAP), and the Mathematics Teachers Association of the Philippines-Tertiary Level (MTAP-TL).
 

MATHTED holds 14th Biennial International Conference

The Philippine Council of Mathematics Teacher Educators (MATHTED), Inc. is a professional organization based in the Philippines founded in 1996. In partnership with Philippine Science High School Western Visayas Campus (PSHS-WVC) and West Visayas State University (WVSU), MATHTED will be holding its 14th Biennial International Conference with the theme “Future-Proofing Mathematics Education: Meeting Challenges and Optimizing Opportunities,” on October 19-21, 2023 at PSHS-WVC in Jaro, Iloilo City. The conference marks the first time in four years that MATHTED has held a face-to-face conference. The conference is open to all mathematics educators, researchers and teachers, supervisors, and administrators from public and private schools. The keynote address, entitled “Future Proof Mathematics Teachers: What do They Need to Know?” will be delivered by Prof Frederick K. S. Leung of the University of Hong Kong, current President of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI). The plenary speakers are Dr Po-Shen Loh of Carnegie Mellon University, Dr Carlene P. Pilar-Arceo of the University of the Philippines Diliman, and Dr Toh Tin Lam of the National Institute of Education in Singapore.   
Registration is open until October 5, 2023. More information is available in MATHTED’s official Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/mathted.

The 74th conference of the commission for the study and improvement of mathematics teaching (CIEAEM-Commission Internationale pour l’Etude et l’Amélioration de l’Enseignement des Mathématiques) took place in Malmö (Sweden) from August 15 to 19, 2023, chaired by Lisa Bjoklund-Boïstrup.

After three years of online meetings, it has been a real pleasure to welcome 126 participants from all five continents to the University of Malmö. As is customary in the tradition of CIEAEM, participants included researchers, teacher trainers, teachers, as well as students (both teacher students and PhD students). The theme of the CIEAEM 74 conference, “Mathematics and Practices: Actions for the Future”, encompassed a broad spectrum of mathematically related practices, organized into four subthemes:

• Mathematics education practices in school and at university, including a view of mathematics education research as a practice which sometimes collaborates with the practices of classroom mathematics and/or mathematics teacher education.
• Mathematics practices in mathematics education, including types of tasks, techniques for solving problems, justifications, and overarching knowledge to draw on (conventions, axioms etc.).
• Mathematics practices in education, in relation to language and culture, including how mathematics may be taken as a plurality of mathematical practices where languages and cultures affect how mathematics is shaped and acted upon.
• Mathematics (education) practices in connection with other practices, in and out of school, including, for example, vocational education, art, and current societal phenomena.

The plenary sessions provided a foundation for the discussions throughout the working groups. Trude Fosse and Tamsin Meaney began by drawing upon the Norwegian tradition of children's problem posing, leading to a discussion on the topic of fairness in education. Cristina Sabena emphasized the significance of gestures in mathematical practices, examining both their role in learning processes and their importance from theoretical and empirical perspectives. Ulrika Ryan analyzed mathematics education in the context of migration, adopting an affirmative approach that acknowledges the challenges faced by migrant students and recognizes their existing knowledge. Faïza Chellougui highlighted the importance of predicate calculus in mathematical activities at the higher education level. Finally, Hendrik Van Steenbrugge explored alternative approaches to curriculum studies in mathematics through an extensive review of existing research in the field.
The conference has also given an opportunity for the editors, Sixto Romero Sanchez, Ana Serradó Bayés, Peter Appelbaum and Gilles Aldon, to present to the CIEAEM community the third book of the series “CIEAEM Source Book” published in the Advances in Mathematics Education series by Springer in June 2023. This book, entitled “The Role of the History of Mathematics in the Teaching/Learning Process” is the result of work starting from communications in the previous conferences of the CIEAEM that have been augmented and refined through a long process of writing and reviews.
 
The proceedings of CIEAEM 74 will be made available online following a phase of writing and review scheduled for the forthcoming months.

13th International Mathematical Creativity and Giftedness Conference (MCG13)
organized by the International Group for Mathematical Creativity and Giftedness (MCG), an ICMI affiliate thematic organization

Dates: February 20 to 23, 2024
Location: Central University of Technology – Free State SOUTH AFRICA

Find out more on the website: https://www.igmcg.org

Dates: July 7 to July 14, 2024
Location: Sydney, Australia

Find out more on the website.