The next General Assembly (GA) of the IAU will be held in Busan, Republic of Korea, on 16–27 August 2021. Two key scientific components of the triennial GA are the Symposia and Focus Meetings. 7 Symposia, 10 Focus Meetings and 3 Institutional Meetings have now been selected for the GA2021.

Symposia are the flagship scientific meetings of the IAU, and aim to significantly advance astronomy by exploring current key questions and emerging concepts through a programme of invited reviews, invited papers, contributed papers and poster papers, as well as providing ample discussion time. Focus Meetings address scientific themes of interest to a group of IAU members willing to promote a new scientific area or an emerging field that is not well, or not at all, represented in the existing IAU Commissions.

The IAU’s Evaluation Committee, which is chaired by the IAU Assistant General Secretary and composed of the six IAU Vice-Presidents and the nine Division Presidents, was faced with the challenge of selecting and recommending Symposia and Focus Meetings for approval by the IAU Executive Committee. Regrettably, the volume of proposals received meant that many good proposals could not be selected.

Unfortunately, since many of the Symposia due to be held in 2020 have had to be postponed to 2021 owing to COVID-19, no further non-GA Symposia have been selected to take place in 2021.

The approved list of IAU Meetings for GA2021 is as follows:

Symposia during the IAU General Assembly

• IAUS 368: Machine Learning in Astronomy: Possibilities and Pitfalls
• IAUS 369: The Dawn of Cosmology & Multi-Messenger Studies with Fast Radio Bursts
• IAUS 370: Winds of Stars and Exoplanets
• IAUS 371: Hono(u)ring Charlotte Moore Sitterly: Astronomical spectroscopy in the 21st century
• IAUS 372: The Era of Multi-Messenger Solar Physics
• IAUS 373: Resolving the Rise and Fall of Star Formation in Galaxies
• IAUS 374: Astronomical Hazards for Life on Earth

Focus Meetings during the IAU General Assembly

• FM1: Physics of Relativistic Jets on all Scales
• FM2: Towards a World Standard for Dark and Quiet Sky Protection
• FM3: Consensus Cosmic Shear in the 2020s
• FM4: UV Insights to Massive Stars and Young Stellar Clusters
• FM5: Beyond the Goldilocks zone: the Effect of Stellar Magnetic Activity on Exoplanet Habitability
• FM6: Dynamics of the ICM: Radio and X-ray Observations and Theory
• FM7: Astrometry for 21st Century Astronomy
• FM8: Planetary Astronomy via Telescopic and Microscopic Approaches
• FM9: Stellar Synthetic Spectra To Study Stellar Populations In The Gaia Era
• FM10: Synergy Of Small Telescopes And Large Surveys For Solar System And Exoplanetary Bodies Research
• FM11: The Astronomical Symposium In The 21st Century

Institutional Meetings

• IAU Early Career Astronomer (ECA) 2021
• Diversity and Inclusion in Astronomy: strategic actions for 2020–2030
• Women in Astronomy
• Global Coordination of Ground and Space Astrophysics
• Division Days

More information

The IAU is the international astronomical organisation that brings together more than 14 000 professional astronomers from more than 100 countries worldwide. Its mission is to promote and safeguard astronomy in all its aspects, including research, communication, education and development, through international cooperation. The IAU also serves as the internationally recognised authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and the surface features on them. Founded in 1919, the IAU is the world's largest professional body for astronomers.

Contacts

José Miguel Rodriguez Espinosa
Assistant General Secretary
Email: IAU_AGS@iap.fr 

Lars Lindberg Christensen
IAU Press Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 320 06 761
Cell: +49 173 38 72 621
Email: lars@eso.org