To propose a problem

Industrial Participants

Please consider what current problem in your company or organization would benefit from a week of intensive collaborative activity with mathematicians. Problems may involve, or turn out to involve, groundbreaking mathematical modelling of areas that have not been studied before, or the development of existing models to cover new circumstances, or the simplification of existing models to provide greater understanding, or combinations of these and other aspects. Problems are welcomed in both the physical and non-physical applications of mathematics and we invite you to bring a suitable current problem to present as one of the 8 problems to be worked on at the Study Group.

The way forward

If you have a problem that you would like to present, please email the organisers (study-group@maths.ox.ac.uk) with an initial description of the problem. We can assist you in preparing a document at a suitable level of detail, which will be circulated to the participants before the Study Group. If we consider that further expertise in a particular field will be valuable, we shall also invite suitable people.

To take full advantage of the opportunity the Study Group presents, it is best if the person presenting the problem can be present for the whole week, not only to make the initial presentation on Monday and to hear the results of the work on Friday, but to give immediate answers to questions that arise during the week. However, if the presenter cannot be there for Tuesday--Thursday, then telephone contact can provide an alternative.

If you have an area that requires mathematical collaboration, but you are uncertain whether the Study Group is the best forum for it, then please also get in touch (study-group@maths.ox.ac.uk.). If some other form of collaboration seems more appropriate, the Smith Institute has links with many UK departments of applied mathematics and computer science, and will probably be able to locate a suitable contact to help you.

Confidentiality

The Study Group is an open meeting, and so is not suitable for problems that are commercially sensitive. The written reports of the work on a problem are discussed and agreed with the company first, before being made publicly available.

Cost

The Problem Presentation Fee is £1500 for a company or organization to present a problem at the Study Group. Exceptionally, in the case of UK Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs, as defined by the Department of Trade and Industry) who have not presented a problem at a Study Group before, the Problem Presentation Fee will be paid by the Faraday Partnership for Industrial Mathematics as part of its activity to promote the application of mathematics to UK industry and specifically to SMEs. The other costs to industrial participants will be the indirect costs of releasing the person to attend the Study Group, and his or her travel and accommodation costs.