Mission

The International Free Radicals Symposium Committee is a non-profit organization authorizing and promoting the holding of scientific and educational meetings on a biannual basis on the subject of free radicals, which are important intermediates in complex chemical reactions.

Free radicals play a crucial role in many important chemical reactions involved in combustion and chemical synthesis, as well as in the atmosphere and in interstellar media. The International Free Radicals Symposium was established over sixty years ago to bring together researchers at the frontier of this field in a wide variety of topics of free radical chemistry with particular emphasis on the spectroscopic identification, characterization and reaction dynamics of radicals. The composition of the International Advisory Committee guarantees the high scientific level of these meetings.

While the theme of present meetings remain the same as for the first Free Radicals Symposium, the experimental and theoretical approaches, as well as the applications, have advanced tremendously. Whereas at that time, the presence or importance of free radicals in a particular process was very difficult to probe, today using modern and sensitive spectroscopic methods their presence cannot only be proven but the radicals themselves characterized in great detail. Indeed what once was seen as “through a glass darkly,” has now been illuminated brightly by lasers and other sensitive means of detection.

The study of radicals, and their structural and dynamical properties has shed light on a vast variety of physical and chemical processes. These processes span an environment from inside every living cell, through the fires of combustion, to the earth’s atmosphere, and beyond to the observable limits of interstellar space. Indeed some free radicals have been observed for the first time in interstellar space before they could be produced in the laboratory. Therefore the Free Radicals Symposia are strongly interdisciplinary with chemists, physicists, astrophysicists and environmental scientists participating, resulting in a conference unique in its creative interaction between diverse disciplines in both their theoretical and experimental aspects.

PREVIOUS SYMPOSIA

Year	Location	Symposium Chair(s)
1956	Quebec City, QC, CANADA	P. A. Giguere
1957	Washington DC, USA	H. P. Broida, A. M. Bass
1958	Sheffield, UK	G. Porter
1959	Washington DC, USA	H. P. Broida, A. M. Bass
1961	Uppsala, SWEDEN	S. Claesson
1963	Cambridge, UK	B. A. Thrush
1965	Padua, ITALY	G. Semerano
1967	Novosibirsk, USSR	V. N. Kondratiev
1969	Banff, AB, CANADA	H. Gunning, D. A. Ramsay
1971	Lyon, FRANCE	M. Peyron
1973	Konigsee, GERMANY	W. Groth
1976	Laguna Beach, CA, USA	E. K. C. Lee, F. S. Rowland
1977	Lyndhurst, Hants, UK	A. Carrington
1979	Sanda, Hyogo-ken, JAPAN	Y. Morino, I. Tanaka
1981	Ingonish, NS, CANADA	W. E. Jones
1983	Lauzelles-Ottignies, BELGIUM	R. Colin
1985	Granby, CO, USA	K. M. Evenson, R. F. Curl, H. E. Radford
1987	Oxford, UK	J. M. Brown
1989	Dalian, CHINA	Postponed
1990	Susono, Shizuoka, JAPAN	E. Hirota
1991	Williamstown, MA, USA	S. D. Colson
1993	Doorworth, NETHERLANDS	H. ter Meulen
1995	Victoria, BC, CANADA	A. J. Merer
1997	Tallberg, SWEDEN	M. Larsson
1999	Flagstaff, AZ, USA	T. A. Miller
2001	Assisi, ITALY	P. Casavecchia
2004	Taipei, TAIWAN	Y. P. Lee
2005	Leysin, SWITZERLAND	J. P. Maier, F. Merkt, M. Quack
2007	Big Sky, MT, USA	R. E. Continetti
2009	Savonlinna, FINLAND	L. Halonen, R. Timonen
2011	Port Douglas, AUSTRALIA	E. J. Bieske, S. H. Kable
2013	Potsdam, GERMANY	P. Botschwina, F. Temps
2015	Olympic Valley, CA, USA	D. Chandler, C. Taatjes, D. Osborn
2017	Hayama, Japan	Y. Ohshima, T. Suzuki, K. Tsukiyama