From the Commission

A message from Dr Dmitri Svergun, Chair of the  IUCr Commission on Small-Angle Scattering:
 
Dear Small-Angle Scatterers,
 
The Commission on Small-Angle Scattering of the International Union of Crystallography (http://www.iucr.org/iucr-top/iucr/csas.html) hereby solicits applications from scientific institutions to host the forthcoming International Small-Angle Scattering Conferences in 2012 and 2015.
 
Those who wish to organize the SAS-2012 or SAS-2015 conferences are kindly asked to submit a bid through the link alongside. After the deadline all bids will be made available online for viewing and discussion by the Community.  Discussion through the SAS listserver will also be possible.
 
Further discussion will then take place at the SAS-2009 Conference, followed by a public vote of the registered participants. This discussion and the results of the vote will be taken as a recommendation to an evaluation board who will award the conferences.

The evaluation board will comprise:

• the Chairpersons of the last three SAS Conference Organising Committees,
• three recognized and substantially engaged conference experts from the SAS community, and
• three members of the IUCr SAS Commission.

The Commission hopes that this procedure will ensure long-term planning of the conferences, taking into account geographical balance, whilst at the same time being open, thorough and fair.