Welcome

Dear Boron Colleagues and Friends,

On behalf of the Organizing Committee, I have the pleasure of inviting all participants to the IMEBORON XV Meeting in Prague. IMEBORON XV is organized under the generous auspices of the president of The Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prof. Jiří Drahoš. This international symposium on Boron Chemistry is the fifteenth of its kind and continues, in the tradition of previous meetings, to interconnect the worldwide Boron Community. The history of IMEBORON Meetings was established forty years ago by Czech boron chemists Stan Heřmánek, Jaromír Plešek and Bob Štíbr in 1972. The conference was held not far from Prague at Liblice Castle and brought together, for the first time, boron hydride scientist from both sides of, what was at the time, a divided world. Boron hydride chemistry had then only recently been declassified after the military programme on high energy rocket propellants was abandoned. The list of participants comprised famous names of H. C. Brown, N. N. Greenwood, R.N. Grimes, M.F. Hawthorne, W. N. Lipscomb, E. Negishi, E. L. Muetterties, R. E. Williams, L. I. Zakharkin and many other outstanding chemists among them (see Boron Icons by N. S. Hosmane).

Memorial Plaque_wm

During the following four decades the scope of the conference gradually changed to the peaceful and more advanced exploration of boron chemistry in many diverse areas. Similarly to the two last very successful conferences held at Platja D’Aro, Catalonya and Niagara Falls, Canada, the programme will cover fields of inorganic and cluster boron chemistry, boron materials, polymers, ceramics, nitrides and oxides, organic boron chemistry, bio-medicinal chemistry of boron compounds including Boron Neutron Capture Therapy and biologically active compounds. All the wonderful areas of activity in all these fields will be addressed here and we believe that the meeting will bring new inspiration for everyone.

                                                                                                   Bohumír Grűner