Highlights from the 54th EUCHEM Bürgenstock Conference on Stereochemistry, Brunnen, Switzerland, May 2019.

Abstract

During the last half century, each May the small town of Brunnen in the Swiss Canton of Schwyz has been transformed into a capital of European organic chemistry. Indeed, this picturesque village hosted, from the 5th to the 9th of May 2019, ‘‘the most secret and prestigious’’ conference in organic chemistry, the Bürgenstock conference. Although welcomed in the Swiss mountains by rain and snow, 120 participants discovered, when arriving on Sunday afternoon, with impatience and excitement, the top secret program of this mysterious conference and the list of participants. The Bürgenstock conference is very different from any other meeting, and deeply steeped in tradition. The conference is limited to around 120 researchers and, most importantly, the speakers are not announced until the first day of the conference. This meeting which is held in the magnificent Seehotel Waldstätterhof, with a view of Lake Lucerne and the surrounding mountains, aims to bring together scientists from different fields of organic chemistry, from both academia and industry. The Bürgenstock conference is much more than sharing excellent science! It’s also about encouraging and fostering the people-to-people contacts and discussions as all participants are hosted in the same hotel thus sharing several days together, from breakfast to a late evening glass of wine. All participants are also expected to attend for the duration of the entire conference. In contrast to rapid-fire short talks and multiple parallel sessions that are the favoured format of many meetings, the entire week comprised only thirteen carefully selected plenary lectures from researchers at the very peak of their careers. Of note is also that the regular participants of the Bürgenstock conference can rest assured that they will attend original lectures as even the most prominent researchers are invited only once in their career as speakers for this meeting. Each talk lasts for approximately sixty minutes and is supplemented by a thirty-minute discussion session during which a growing list is kept of participants who wish to ask questions. The nature of the questions varied greatly, from straightforward queries about approaches and methodology, through ideas for new applications and experiments, to conceptual questions that ask deep questions about where organic chemistry research will go in the future. A schedule that looked somewhat relaxed at the start of the week quickly revealed itself as an intense yet immensely satisfying programme of science. The 54th edition of this famous conference was presided over by Professor Véronique Gouverneur FRS (University of Oxford), with Professor Janine Cossy (ESPCI-Paris) as Vice President, and was organised by a dedicated committee of leading scientists from Swiss academia and industry: Professor Christian Bochet, Dr Alain De Mesmaeker, Dr Fabrice Gallou, Professor Cristina Nevado, Professor Thomas Ward and Professor Jérôme Waser. As tradition dictates, fifteen young researchers had the privilege to attend this famous event as JSP Fellows, and we are very grateful to the organisers for generously awarding these fellowships. The conference began with dinner and with a welcome address delivered by Professor Gouverneur from the balcony overlooking the ornate Fronaap-Saal, with high ceilings and large windows looking out across Lake Lucerne towards snow-topped mountains. Dr John Brown FRS, who was Véronique’s mentor when she began her academic career, was introduced as the Guest of Honour. Véronique then continued to discuss the important heritage of the Bürgenstock meeting, highlighting the first ever meeting in 1965, which was presided over by Professor André S. Dreiding and featured many scientists who are now famous for their contributions to the areas of organic chemistry and biology; these include Vladimir Prelog ForMemRS (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1975), Jack Dunitz FRS, Stephen Mason FRS, Max Perutz FRS (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1962) and John Cornforth FRS (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1975). The opening session of the first a WestCHEM Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry, University of Strathclyde, 295 Cathedral Street, Glasgow, G1 1XL, UK. E-mail: [email protected] b Laboratoire d’Innovation Moléculaire et Applications, ECPM, UMR 7042, Université de Strasbourg/ Université de Haute—Alsace, 25 rue Becquerel, Cedex 67087, Strasbourg, France. E-mail: [email protected] DOI: 10.1039/c9cc90354b