First Year at Banff International Research Station

brings to the institute a strong academic standing , excellent administrative and leadership experience, and a far-reaching international network of scientists. I am sitting in the beautiful westward-facing dining room at the Banff Centre, watching the sun set gloriously into the Rocky Mountains. Even with it all in front of me, it is still hard to grasp the reality that the mathematicians of Western Canada have been so fortunate to have created a facility like BIRS in such a magnificent location. Not only is the setting exhilarating, but also BIRS itself has proved to be a congenial and well-appointed facility for the participants who have come here from every part of the world. As you read this BIRS will have held on the order of 37 five-day workshops as well as some 20 research in teams, focused research groups, and two-day workshops involving well over 1200 participants. All reports indicate that participants and organizers love B I R S. M o u n t a i n a i r , a beautiful setting, modern and well-equipped facilities, good food, a friendly staff, all in a semi-isolated setting do wonders to put people into a creative and heightened frame of mind! To quote a few samples of comments that we have received: " This is BY FAR the most pleasant, satisfying and rewarding experience I have EVER had as an organizer of a conference, but most importantly I am very happy to Participants of the BIRS Creative Writing Workshop which ran from August 31–September 4, 2003. report that the meeting was a resounding scientific success! The participants spent a great deal of time in scientific discussions during the free times, and I saw people starting to collaborate on some of the open questions raised during the workshop. I am really thrilled about this ... I give BIRS an unqualified A+! "-NK This newsletter serves as a reminder of everything the PIMS community has accomplished since Nassif Ghoussoub and the early PIMS supporters first conceived the idea of a distributed institute connecting science and industry through mathematics. There is now so much activity going on, and it has attracted many researchers to this part of the world. But there also remains so much to be done. We must maintain the pioneer spirit that is so apparent in endeavours such as the Industrial Problem Solving Workshop, Pi in the Sky, and the …