2019: A special year for chemistry

It is a pleasure to write an editorial for the GDCh members’ journal because together we are making 2019 a special year, both for chemistry as a discipline, and for the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (Iupac) as an organisation. The International Year of the Periodic Table provides a platform to remind people of chemistry, if only through bringing up dim memories from school. It also allows us to celebrate what chemistry has achieved, and to think about how chemistry can provide solutions for the future.

Iupac is charged with the mission of providing objective scientific expertise and providing tools for the application and communication of chemical knowledge. Looking back from the 100 year mark, the high profile Iupac activities of codification and development of nomenclature and terminology, curation of the Periodic Table (and the atomic weights and related data that are tied to it), and critical evaluation of data are clear indicators of mission success. Much of this work will continue, but in new ways that meet the demands of the digital world.

Scientific research and commerce based on chemical intellectual property have both been dependent on b

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