Satellite Conference to the 1st European Chemistry Congress

From 27-31 August 2006 the 1st European Chemistry Congress will be held in Budapest, Hungary. At this Congress there will be several plenary lectures by Nobel laureates, over 100 top-level lectures, and 100 short communications. Among the 17 Special Topics Symposia held at the Congress there are symposia dedicated to ‘Environmental Chemistry’, ‘Chemistry, Food and Health’, and ‘Teaching Chemistry – Past, Present, and Future’ (see: www.euchems-budapest2006.hu).

As a satellite conference to this Congress, the Working Party (WP) on History of Chemistry of the European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences (EuCheMS) and the Commission on the History of Modern Chemistry of the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science (IUHPS), the EuCheMS-Divisions on Analytical Chemistry and Food Chemistry together with the Hungarian Chemical Society, the Szent István University, Gödöllõ, and the Hungarian Museum for Science and Technology will organise a conference on the ‘History of the Food Chain - From Agriculture to Consumption and Waste’, that will be held at Szent István University, Gödöllõ, 30 kilometers from Budapest, from 31 August - 3 September 2006.

The aim of the conference

The aim of this conference is to bring together historically interested chemists working in the fields of food chemistry, agricultural chemistry, analytical chemistry, biochemistry and environmental chemistry, and historians of chemistry. During the 19th and, especially, the 20th century, chemistry played an important role in the study of food and nutrition, as well as in the (quality) control of foodstuffs, fertilisers, and other products involved in human nutrition and cattle-breeding. The conference wants to contribute to an improved historical understanding of the major changes of the ‘food chain’ during more than a century, and of the role played by chemical expertise in this process. In several European countries chemists in the food industries (e.g. sugar), and analytical chemists involved in the control of foodstuffs have played a major role in the professionalisation of chemistry. By bringing together chemists and historians working in these fields we hope to deepen our insight into the historical interdependences of the different stages of the food chain, including its environmental impacts, and by so doing improve our understanding of the social role of chemistry.