The XXI Mendeleev Congress on General and Applied Chemistry was launched on 9 September 2019 in St. Petersburg. The Congress is a key event of the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements in Russia and is held under the supervision of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). About 3,000 people, including 300 foreign scientists from 51 countries and Nobel laureates, take part in the event. More than half of the participants are young scientists.

Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Tatyana Golikova, Minister of Science and Higher Education Mikhail Kotyukov, RAS President Alexander Sergeev took part in the festive opening ceremony of the Congress. President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin sent his greetings to the participants of the event.

World-leading scientists will deliver their lectures, including Academician Yu. Ts. Oganessian, Scientific Leader of the Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions JINR. In his speech at the opening of the Congress, Yuri Oganessian, an outstanding Soviet and Russian scientist, traced the history of the study of atomic “bricks” and the synthesis of new elements. These discoveries were made for the last 150 years, since the creation of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements, and allowed supplement the Table with new elements. On the same day, Nobel Prize holders Jean-Pierre Sauvage and William Moerner, as well as Britain chemist, science populariser Martyn Poliakoff delivered their reports.

FLNR Director S. N. Dmitriev is a member of the International Committee of the XXI Mendeleev Congress and a co-chairman of the scientific section of the Congress “The Periodic Table and new elements”. Moreover, reports at the Congress will be made by FLNR Deputy Director A. G. Popeko and Head of the Department of Chemistry of transactinides N. V. Aksenov, staff members of the Laboratory G. A. Bozhikov, P. Steinegger, and A. A. Astakhov.

Every 4 or 5 years, the Mendeleev Congress welcomes scientists from all over the world to the scientific and cultural centres of Russia to discuss the key fields for the development of chemistry, education and industry in Russia. The Mendeleev Congress is recognized as the largest Russian scientific event focusing on fundamental and applied chemical research. It is different from other similar events not only in terms of the scale of the event but also thanks to the coverage of all the fields of chemistry, chemical technologies, industry, and relevant fields of science and industry as well. The Congress was established on the initiative of the Russian Physical and Chemical Society in memory of D. I. Mendeleev. The first Congress was held in 1907 in memory of the death of a prominent scientist.

The Congress will be held until 13 September.

Following the articles of Minobrnauki and the “Scientific Russia” website