B. Abstracts & Program Book
1. Notify participants of assignment. 4 $
2. Get book out earlier. 1
3. Print speakers institute after name in Program Book. 1

C. Schedule
1. Overlap of talks of interest. 18
2. Times with nothing of interest. 3
3. Program too full. 6
4. Do not overlap with satellites. 2
5. Keynotes too early for dorm people. 8
6. Format good to perfect. 12
7. Chairs must enforce schedule. 12
8. Eliminate 3 hr. break at med day. 2
9. Some lecture halls too early for audience. 1
10. Need buses for people in dorms. 11 $$
11. No heavy (science) sessions in evening. 1
12. Put keynotes at noon. 2
13. Sessions & poster assembly should be fixed 3 months before meeting. 1
14. Avoid confusing room changes. 2
15. Leave afternoons free. 1
16. Schedule more discussion time and/or sessions. 5
18. Shorten meeting schedule more parallel sessions. 2
19. Post daily schedule and room assignments on large board at entrance. 1
20. Partition topics into blocks of days. 3
21. Run scientific sessions into evening (to 8pm). 2 $
22. Reduce macromolecular session and/or restrict to fewer days. 8
23. Too little time for lunch. 2
24. Too much time for lunch. 1
25. Standardize length of talks in parallel session. 4
26. Poor format. 1
27. Too many parallel sessions. 5
D. Oral Presentation
1,4,10. Not of high calibre, poor material, undisciplined. 16
2. Too long. 4
3. Too short. 1
17-6. Too many. 10
7. More instruction should be given speakers and chairs. 6
8. More methods, less application. 6
9. Keynotes should be general overview. 2
11. More overview (application) talks. 4
12. More young speakers & young speaker sessions. 5
14. Nobel Laureates an asset. 2
15. Nobel Laureates talks should be in evening. 1
16. Some topics were not covered. 1
18. Bais- male. 2
19. Bias- elite. 2
20. Keynotes should not be in parallel. 4
21. Overlap in content (materials session). 1
22. Don't draw orals from contributed abstracts. 1
23. Allow more than one contribution per person without additional charge. 4 $$$
25. Less Nobel talks. 4
26. Keynotes excellent. 5
27. Too many keynotes. 1
28. Only one talk per person should be allowed. 1
29. Many no show talks. 1
E. Poster Presentation
9-1-3. Schedule more (in evening) one day expenses. 18
2. Too many missing. 2
4. Screen, groups and highlight better. 6
5. Link to keynote addresses. 1
6. People did not attend their poster. 1
7. Schedule after afternoon talks. 1
10. Some of all categories each day. 1
11. Partition topics into different days
12. Perfect. 3
13. Nothing should be in parallel. 3
14. Give a better time slot. 1
15. Should have refreshments. 4 $
16. Too many

F. Banquet
1. Too expensive. 18
2. Bad service. 1
4. Poor entertainment. 1 $
5. Skip thank you speeches. 1
6-7. Different format. 5 $
8. Include cost of registration. 2 $

G. Refreshments
1. More pastries, cookies. 2 $
2. Afternoon and evening coffee. 20 $$
3. Food was good. 1

H. Science Center
1. Excellent. 10
2. Music too loud. 1

I. Excursion
1. Separate excursion days for different subgroup
(Macro, materials, chem cryst. etc.). 2
2. Schedule before or after Congress. 3
3. Include cost in registration. 3 $

J. Student Mixer
1. Excellent. 1
2. Poor drink selection. 1 $

K. Opening Session
1. Entertainment poor. 1
2. Excellent. 6

L. Satellites
1. After congress. 4
2. If good reason, separate from congress. 1
3. At congress site. 2
4. With other societies. 1
5. Schedule none in on IUCr Congress year. 2
M1. Other Sound Events
1. More opportunities for informal mixing. 8 $
2. Include in cost of registration. 2 $
3. Evening session, music history, art very good. 2
4. More info on local events wanted. 1

M. Workshops
1. Before and after Congress. 4
2. Overlap excursion. 2

N. Accommodations
1. Dissatisfication in Seattle. 1
2. Cheaper hotels needed. 2
3. Use more dorms. 1
4. Reservations not confirmed. 1

O. Name Tags
1. Nice type size. 2
2. Add country. 2

P. Organization
1. Need shuttle buses from airport. 1 $
2. Registration too high. 6
3. Attendance fell off at the end. 3
4. Exhibits left early. 1
5. Get more industrial support. 1
6. All together too expensive. 20
7. More workstations. 4 $$
8. Better program for accompanying members. 7 $
10. Meeting should be long enough to make foreign airfare cost effective. 2
11. Be eco conscions. 1
12. Have a job fair. 1 $

Q. Cudos
1. Excellent meeting. 4 3
2. Seattle wonderful. 1
3. Facilities wonderful. 3
4. E-mail access great. 2

S. Facilities
1. Inadequate. 1
2. Session room too small. 1
C9. Session room too large. 1

X. Hated it. 6

Z. Miss. 17

82 requests that will increase registration cost again. 15 complained that registration costs in general were too high in addition to the 18 complaints about banquet cost.

IUCr Congress Questionnaire Summary

495 Total responses

#1. How many days should Congress last?
7 days-246 7 or less days-6 6-7 days-1
8 days-120 6 days-3 7-8 days-8
9 days-35 5 days-2 9-10 days-2
10 days-64 8,9, or,10 day-1 no answer-7

#2. Should Satellites form part of main Congress?
No-165 Some-169
Yes-125 no answer-36

#3. Should there be joint Satellite meetings?
No-149 Maybe-1
Yes-248 no answer-97

#4. Should there be full or half-day excursions?
Full-307 Neither-61
Half-110 Half or Neither-1
Both-6 no answer-10

#5. Should day/half-day be reserved exclusively for excursions?
No-116 no answer-15
Yes-364

#6. Should attendees make own excursion arrangements?
No-268 Some-4 Optional-1 no answer-47
Yes-162 Both-12 Either-1

#7. Should there be lunch-time sessions?
No-285 Some-142
Yes-66 no answer-2

#8. Should there be evening sessions?
No-129 Some-259
Yes-106 no answer-1

#9. Should there be fewer parallel sessions?
No-266 no answer-13
Yes-216

#10. Should there be fewer keynote lectures?
No-382 More-1
Yes-102 no answer-10

There should be more activities for guests. It would be nice to have a place in the conference center where guests could meet/sit/relax...

Main problems: 1. Insufficient time between sessions &;conference banquet 2. Sheraton: a bad choice for a banquet venue due to: a. Very poor value for money. b. Bad service. c. Scant meal and insultingly small amounts of 'complementary' alcohol. 3. Clashes between like sessions (eg inorg/minerals and phase transitions) -these should be spaced through the meeting and conferences should be encouraged to attend the full meeting. 4. 10 minutes is too short for a talk! Otherwise- very well organized for size of meeting. Science center event excellent.

Thank you very much for organizing this conference!!!

Problem in pre-registration: 1. Please inform applicant upon receiving of application form. 2. Please inform participants if their abstracts for posters are selected for oral presentation. 3. Admit there are mistakes if they occur. Please do not blame participants.

#9 better discrimination of conflicts.#10 about right. 1. Nobel laureate lectures: as Michael Bishop ( a Nobel Laureate) has said "I am only as good as my next experiment". Nobel Laureates should not get free passes to speak. 2. Speakers in microsymposia should have no less than a 20 min slot to development their topic. Too many talks leads to mental confusion. 3. Chairs (at various levels) should make it clear to speakers that they need to leave time for questions in their slot.

Regarding the scope of the attendance of the scholars, like aged and/or having less income, some financial arrangement would have helped to fulfill their desire of getting a chance to meet so many pioneer workers, as directed by you in this congress

1. There should be more (short) social occasions. 2. Poster sessions should extend in the evening, with wine etc. 3. Overlap between satellites and main congress should be avoided. 4. Speakers should have only one slot- there were some speakers, who used the same material more then once within the main meeting.

#6- but should have choice of whether to participate. #8- not heavy scientific sessions. I did not care for the 'entertainment'. The jugglers were inane, and the band at the Science Center made it impossible to have a conversation. Please include page numbers for abstracts and talk schedule. It was very difficult to locate abstracts and talks from index page. Organizing poster sessions by topic, as done for ACA meetings would be helpful. I would also prefer smaller one-day poster sessions rather than massive 2-day sessions. In general, room size was good, focus and shaking of slide projections not as good. Many sessions ran over time.

Some poster sessions were in the evening then maybe there could be less parallel sessions. The science center was fantastic-maybe ever if a charge for something that was necessary it would be much better than the overpriced (under catered) banquet which many students struggled to find the money to attend &;could have used the money much better. Maybe not all plenaries. First thing alternating with very specialist sessions would make it easier for those who had to travel long distances each day. Overall-really great.

Longer poster sessions would be very helpful- at this meeting, the overlap of Nobel Laureate talks with the poster sessions made the poster sessions especially short. Also, having a longer, open poster session (i.e. In the evening) would allow more people to view the posters whenever they have time. More methodologies instead of structural sessions would be extremely helpful.

The meeting was too long. One way it could have been shortened is to reduce the number of keynote addresses (some were sparsely attended) and assign some of the talks to posters. It may also be necessary to screen the poster submissions also, have the keynote addresses tied to the posters so that the keynote speakers provide an overview of the posters scheduled for that day and highlight more of the important posters.The meeting was good in the way it was not cannibalized by the biological crystallographers (especially protein people). But still there is a large imbalance between that group and all the rest.

#5- other things are fine to schedule simultaneously #9- max of 6

#1- shorter than this one. #5- or workshops no sessions. #6 choice of prearranged excursions a good idea. #10- enjoyed the KN lectures very much.There was only one keynote address by a female scientist. I find this astounding in a scientific organization which includes so many outstanding women scientists. Please make an effort to go beyond the "old boy" network.

Seattle was great!! In protein crystallography more emphasis should be placed on methods than on structures.

There should be a careful analysis of parallel sessions so as to prevent clashes.

The format of Plenary 8:30-9:30, Microsymposium 10-12:30, posters 1:30-3:30 and then Microsymposia 3:30-6:30 worked extremely well. Please keep it up. Perhaps excursions could be arranged before and/or after the meeting for those who want them.

Morning &;afternoon sessions are too long. We need coffee in the middle. Three hours at lunch is too long. Talks needed to be kept to time strictly. Then we could have questions, concise interesting presentations, and move between sessions without disturbance. Student mixer &;event at exploratory were excellent, well catered, well organized &;great fun! Thank you.

Keynotes should be more like overviews so people from other fields can participate.

When a large part of the participants are accommodated beyond walking distance from the conference center there must be arranged special busses! (everyday, morning &;evening) furthermore it would be a nice service if there was coffee,tea/fresh water included in the registration fee. These drinks should be available from morning till evening.The lacking lunch break has had the effect that the poster sessions have been used as lunchbreaks. This is very unsatisfactorily and entirely not fair to the large work that the participants have put into their respective posters.

6 days, about half this stuff is outstanding about 40% is dispensable.

1. Hotel/Congress center geography was ideal. Can this be done in Glasgow? If not continuous transportation if needed. Remember Bordeaux!! 2. Why no coffee in the afternoon? 3. Excursions could be the Saturday before, or the Sunday following the conference. 4. Evening Social events "Arts and Crystallography" were really good. 5. Nobel Laureates events were really enjoyable-can Glasgow do this also? 6. Need to include public &;schools somehow to assist public understanding od science. 7. Need access to sports facilities. 8. Poster sessions were good. 9. Need many terminals, this was very useful. 10. Could you set up an internal e-mail account system for all attendees? This would solve the communication problem. 11. I enjoyed the Seattle meeting.

#2 &3-;they should be on adjacent days or evenings. #5- in the middle of conference. #6- it's nice to have a choice of possibilities. #9- but better preplanning so attendees won't be as torn between two highly relevant sessions, if possible. Given the importance of computations &;structural analysis for understanding protein structures and intermolecular interactions, I'd like to see more talks devoted to this area, and for more of these talks to be earlier in the conference.

IUCr meetings cater to approximately 100 countries with different. In order to make the visit enjoyable and affordable the organizers should arrange for two or three shuttles to the airport for pickup &;drop off at the airport. This will particularly help people whose mother tongue is not english. The registration fee should be kept to a minimum to cover the expenses alone. Penalty for late payment from international scientist must be waived, they have problems with the procedures in sending the money in advance.

An excellent meeting. However, I was not pleased with the banquet as it was too expensive.

Oral presentations should begin with a couple of review presentations. Many use oral sessions to broaden their knowledge of fields infringing on there own.

The capacity if the lecture rooms should be closer to fit the number of interested people. It would be nice to have coffee in the afternoon too.

Keynote lectures were too early for people who were staying in the halls. The banquet was extremely poor for the price that was charged. The Science Center reception was very well organized and a very good idea.

That was an excellent meeting. However many people presenting their posters were not in front of their posters during the poster sessions!! Without knowing it, they were difficult to spot them and have a chance to speak with them.

The congress has gradually 'fizzled' out- less people each day. The commercial exhibition packing up early adds to this feeling. The satellites should be after the main congress, which would encourage people to stay on. This was the case for the synchrotron &;power satellites in China in 1993

The banquet was overpriced. It was the most expensive dinner I had and the poorest in quality. Could you get more (some) industry sponsorship of food &;wine?

Disappointing how the number of delegates was significantly fewer towards the end- the problem with a long congress. Having the satellites after the congress would help to alleviate this problem.The conference banquet was disappointing. The food/drink at the opening reception and the Pacific Science Center was excellent. Yet the food at the banquet was rather thin on the ground and the complementary glass of wine was ridiculous. Why the difference in quality between the banquet and the other receptions? Perhaps another reception/banquet should be considered for future years.

Prices were much too high; coffee should be available for the whole day for free.

Satellites should not be combined with the congress, would not allow attendance of more general lectures.

Chartered busses should be arranged to bring the participants from their place of stay (which for most people is in the university halls of residence) to the venue of the conference every morning. Also, clear directions/necessary map should be made available to such participants to return to their places of stay by the public transport (different participants will be returning at different times in the afternoon/evening).

1. $50 for a banquet with only dinner, no music or dancing etc is quite expensive. 2. One way to match the whole programming fewer days is to have 'biological' and 'others' taking the excursion on different days, allowing lectures to continue for 'others' when 'biologists' are on travel &;vice versa.

Overall the IUCr conference was very well organized. The planning of the schedule of the lectures and presentations was as near perfect as could be. The overwhelming amount of experimental and theoretical information disseminated was really awesome. The only criticism I would like to make is that there should be a more representative distribution of oral presentation from all groups. Some of the groups were over represented. More opportunities should be given to smaller groups, and younger scientists.

There should be some obligations for people who submit poster abstracts that they actually put the poster up. The number os posters which were never present at this conference was extremely annoying.

Avoid overlap of sessions with a common scientific scope.

The $50 banquet was too expensive for the food you got.

Starting afternoon lectures at 3:30 meant I missed some talks or had to break off from posters. It would be better to have talks followed by posters. In macromolecular crystallography the interest is in methods and techniques or in structures described in their biological environment. Descriptions of structures alone (eg enzymes, viruses) are of declining interest.

It might make sense to lengthen the conference if it includes joint satellite meetings. This meeting was a good balance of parallel sessions. Put workshops at the beginning or end not parallel with the excursion.

I attended about 1/2 the sessions over 7 days. I doubt whether more that 5% of attendees go to all the sessions over 9 days. Some selection is needed, either more posters or very short talks. So to getting funding, people need to present something somewhere. Informal lunch sessions are good. Tell people in advance when their sessions will be (3 months before congress) so that they are not forced to stay for the whole meeting. Let the people do what they want &;don't be afraid that they will all come on 2 or 3 days. Business meetings involving small numbers of people can be before or after the main congress, they should not stretch the meeting out for 2000 people.

This meeting has been great, both in the organization of events and scientific presentation. I am also grateful for the organizers to invite 8 Nobel Laureates to the meeting. It is a great inspiration to us young scientists.

The biological, chemical &;materials crystallography program should continue to be spread out throughout the full duration of the conference. One of the main strengths of this meeting is the opportunity to find out what is happening at the broad frontiers of crystallography. Long may it last.

Keynote lectures started too early for people who stayed in cheaper accommodations. It was a gorgeous meeting!

Keynote lectures later in the day; people from residences had trouble getting downtown for 8:30 am. Posters at night. No 3 hour break in middle of day.

#1 if satellite meetings are embedded into the main meeting, a long meeting may be appropriate. Otherwise, shorten the meeting to 5 days. #3 ok for business meeting.

The cost of attending the IUCr congress is becoming prohibitive as travel funding is steadily reduced. The registration fee alone for the present meeting was excessive. I could not hope to obtain funding for a satellite meeting and the main meeting. I attended five days of the main meeting and one of those was the excursion!! The program should be arranged as a series of 'satellite' meetings, so the subjects of interest are much more concentrated in time.

Keynote lectures should be at lunch! Not at 8:30 am. Poster sessions should be in the evening.

Due to classes starting soon after the meeting, I could not afford to spend the full 9.5 days at the conference. I found the delay in posting the poster schedule made planning and purchasing plane tic tickets difficult. The poster schedule wasn't posted until a few days before the hotel reservation deadline. The protein-CHO structures (04.11) was moved from Aug 15 to Aug 9, and I missed it. I would like to encourage (beg, actually) to make the schedule early, and stick with it.It's been a great conference, and well run, while we've been in Seattle. I even liked the name tags.

The chairperson should make sure that each speaker uses no more time that the scheduled one. Perhaps a brief "Instructions &;Suggestions" to elected/hand-picked chairpersons should be elaborated and distributed.

The organizers did a wonderful job making this meeting successful. Seattle is a beautiful city!Only dissatisfaction I have is about the U of Wash dorms. It's cafe, ___ is always ___ card never worked, the room is decent, but the bathroom isn't.

I ran out of steam by Friday.

#6- like the seattle meeting. The Pacific Science Center evening was great. It was very helpful having bus/van service to dormitories for evening activities.

It should be possible to move around and see people at the banquet, and either be cheaper or more value for the money.

A minimal number of weekend days would be preferable. Perhaps most of the excursion activities on the weekend and less talks.

Seattle was very good indeed. The e-mail computers and workstations were an excellent facility. Ideally there should have been a few more. 1 computer for every 100 persons?? It would be helpful if name badges showed country as well as institution. The size of type for names was very good.

More attention needs to be paid to keeping a strict schedule. If speakers cannot hold themselves to the allotted time, they should be cut off. Reasons for this opinion: 1. Allows audience to attend the talks they want to hear. Not just guess at when a talk will start. 2. It is only fair to later speakers. 3. Running over shows a lack of discipline in communication skills. Young scientists need to learn how to concisely present their work.

#6- but it should be possible without organized tour

The banquet dinner should be a much more amusing event and not a lot of speeches and thanks from the organizers to the organizers. Try music and entertainment instead. The thanks can wait for the closing ceremony and should preferably be suppressed from the participants.

Accompanying persons had no place to meet on a regular basis. It took days for some people to connect. A room in the convention center would have been very helpful for accompanying people.

I like the poster session in the afternoon between the symposia. However, there should not be other activities during that time ( eg Nobel lectures).

In general- a very good job considering the diversity of interests. Meeting always seems too long, perhaps this is impossible to avoid.

A better conference dinner would be good . $50 for a small amount of food and one glass of wine is unacceptable.

In terms of program organization, this was the best IUCr I have attended!

#9 &;#10- a question of type, size and aim of meeting

It is very difficult to maintain attention through a meeting lasting more than four days, so a break is essential. On the other hand, different venues vary a great deal both in the amount of interesting opportunity for excursions and the ability of local transportation to accommodate a whole congress excursion, ( it would be a pity to travel to Beijing without seeing the Great Wall, but the 23 bus cavalcade clearly overwhelmed facilities). There are various possible models. Some work better in some places and others in others. It is important to have information about the structure of the program to be available well in advance, so that travel arrangements can be made.

There should be a coffee break in the afternoon as well as in the morning. A sort of cookies for coffee would have been nice. The banquet was too expensive for what was really there. The served dinner &;drinks shouldn't have cost more than $25.

You have done an excellent job of organizing this congress. My only suggestion would be to charter a bus service for transportation to the main meeting if dormitories are used for housing in the future.

Although I would prefer that all attendees attend the entire congress, I can see that cost (mainly) and time does make it difficult for some. Placing the microsymposia on one subject together (as was done for high pressure; charge, spin, &;momentum density) does allow the attendees some flexibility. For the some reasons I prefer that the satellite meetings be part of the main congress, rather than before &;after the congress in different cities. This does mean though that the final planning of the program should be made (say) 6 months before the congress.

#6 up to them to decide, but group option nice. Plenty of chances for people to meet &;mix essential in a big meeting. No way will I spend more than 7 days at another meeting.

#10- but screen speakers to keep it exciting! Keeping registration/accommodation fees down is of prime importance these days. Would the use of university facilities be more cost effective than a convention center? Provide a wider price range in hotel accommodations. There are several cheaper, but good hotels in Seattle quite close to the convention center, but these were not listed in 2nd circular. Having poster sessions in early afternoon is good, one tends to become sleepy in post-lunch sessions so this helps. Well organized- well done in Seattle!

Large number of canceled talks this congress- could have easily shortened the meeting. Very expensive registration, costly lodging due to length. Suggest using campus/university resources, rather than commercial. Cost should be a major concern. Limit oral presentations- many talks are speakers that I have heard before- encourage students and young investigators.

#5- if there are excursions

Receptions were very nice. Have another reception-style evening instead of the banquet. Addresses, rewards and business could also be presented at a reception by reserving a stage area for such stuff.

Outrageous registration fee; cut extravagant receptions (2)!

#1- would prefer 4-5 day

There should be more 1-day poster sessions. All categories should be presented everyday. This way less people will be tied to their posters and if all posters of the some scientific area will be at the same place, the people presented may easily exchange views also or leave their posters for minutes. It is extremely bad together, say superconductors in one big poster session. Unless you want only people from other fields to look at posters.

There is too much going on from 1:00-3:30 at this meeting. Nobel laureate sessions should be evening sessions like other sessions of general/historical/para-scientific nature.

1. I would have liked the hotel to confirm receipt of my deposit. 2. I like a large noteboard by registration giving the day's timetable in words not just section numbers. 3. Notices by the door should give the name and lecture topic of plenary lectures as well. 4. Chairs got hard after an hour or so, hard to take notes. 5. Good to have access to e-mail. 6. Conference dinner was no a good value for money, I prefer a glass of wine and a liquor. 7. Good to have coping facilities so close to the convention. 8. Good to have photography of delegates on sale at the book stall.

#6- upon recommendation

Keynote lectures were too early for people not staying near convention center. The banquet was very expensive; and the food poor.

#6- as an alternative choice to the 'organized' excursion. 1. Maybe make the first half mainly small molecules &;the second half mainly macromolecules. 2. Definitely split poster sessions so that some are only macromolecules &;some only the rest...3. Less talks or same amount but shorter. 4. More organized activities for accompanying guests...5. Keynote: 1/2 hr to 40 minutes, rather than 1 hr. 6. Talks: maybe should all be 15-20 minutes rather than 30 minutes. 7. Poster preview sessions: good idea. 8. The 'non-scientific' activities were well organized &;interesting: young scientists mixer, pacific science center.

All schedules (including poster sessions) should be fixed, at least 3 months before. We planned to attend not all sessions but some familiar topics, or sessions we are going to have presentations.

Perhaps have 2 half day excursions times setup for people to choose the one that fits best into their schedule: A. One with no overlap with biological sessions. B. One with no overlap with materials, etc sessions.

Include at least part of the excursion and banquet cost in the registration. Students should not be excluded from these activities as I believe they are due to cost. (Banquet should cost no more than $25; excursion should cost less than a rental car split 3 ways, $15). The request for suggestions is another example of the excellent manner in which the organizers have run the congress. It's the largest and best meeting I have ever been to.

Would appreciate better information on local events, travel (bus etc.) and sights to see.

The keynote lectures began too early in the morning for attendees who stayed at the UW residence halls. If they would have started 15 minutes later, it would have been more convenient.

Nice poster sessions (2 day &;during the day).Way too expensive!!

Keynote/session/posters/session worked well!

#6- organize sign up trips also give recommendations for non-signing options. 1. High quality talks should be given more time; low quality talks should be removed. I'm sorry if this means students don't get talking experience, but it's not why I come. 2. Protein structures presented for their own sake are not interesting. A talk should be answering an interesting question. 3. More effort should be put into organizing posters into groups of similarity- I mean their physical display locations. Also posters should be instructed to use large font for title and authors.

#7- with sig's &;user meetings there already are lunch time sessions

#1 Sat, with excursion on Wed. I thought this congress was excellent! Very well organized and structured.

The meeting has suffered from a lack of a interest &;strong set of sessions on structural chemistry (un-nuclear) ie non macromolecular.

Good: -transport facilities after the evening events!! -spectacle in the theatre at the first day -'Art in Crystallography 'To be improved: -coffee should be given without charge during the whole day.

#2 &;#3- status quo is good. Nothing should conflict with the poster hours, not Nobel talks, and not even council and/or commission meetings.

Congress should be 'as long as it takes', but a longer ratio of posters/talks with more time per (good) talk (30-45 min) would improve the content received for about the same total elapsed time.If 9-10 days, them an excursion day is called for. How about evening sessions designed to be free-for-all debates of particular (sets of) specialized points, interpretations/computational models/experimental methods etc. I know nothing more productive than a good 'fight' with knowledgeable colleagues. Organizing of this meeting very well done! Imitate it.

Thank you for a very nice conference!

#6 should sign up after they arrive if they want to. Young scientist session for students to present their work and encourage discussions and help from the 'experts'. The organized events were good and enjoyable. The science center party was fantastic! There was a bit of confusion about the congress before arriving, no receipt of registering and payment. Lecture sessions were quite exhausting.

Congress ran extremely well. Only real improvement would be too many changes to talk venues (causes too much confusion &;disruption).

Seattle format is OK.

Absolutely necessary to have one day free around the middle of the congress (for relaxation and contacts with the other participants under nice conditions). The evening at the Pacific Science Center was just perfect! The banquet not very exciting- and expensive for what you got!

#7- few#8- very special topics

The congress structure works well as it is. There is always temptation to change things, but if there is nothing seriously wrong, as here, then this should be insisted.

More afternoon free time. Evening poster sessions; let vendors supply refreshments. Leave more time after talks for discussing, or enforce limits better.

At least one organized trip, eg city tour, for accompanying people to get to know one another well enough to team up with for more excursions by themselves. $75 is a bit much otherwise. Having computers for electronic mail home is much appreciated, thank you.

The only sour aspect of this congress was the inane coverage in the Seattle newspaper. It is commonly agreed, I think, that it is important to communicate science to the public. Evidently this supposedly rather sophisticated town (Boeing, Microsoft,...) has no science writer. Should the IUCr do something to forestall this idiocy in the future, prepare a press release or something?

Fewer lectures per session.

This meeting, despite some troubles such as duration, number of overlapping sessions, and satellite meetings following the main conference, has been generally outstanding. Meeting only every 3 years (which I believe is appropriate), it is important to allow as much time for all who wish to present their work.

#6- with the exception of the times when the meeting is held in a country where english is not widely spoken. In these cases perhaps left to the discretion of the organizing committee.

On the whole, very well done! Congratulations to the organizing &;program committees. The balance of content was about as good as can be expected. The Pacific Science Center excursion was exceptionally good &;most enjoyable (maximum opportunity to interact with others in a casual format). But the banquet was a disaster!! The food was extremely disappointing (both quality &;quantity) and the outrageous prices for wine &;beer were simply disgraceful. Perhaps it should be remembered that there were many, many, students and scientists from 'power' countries- $50 was way too much for what we got; please give elitist banquets at the Sheridan a big no at any future meetings you organize.

The scheduling of the poster sessions from 1:30-3:30 pm was an excellent idea, it made the meeting seem less hectic than usual.

#10 about right- 3/day to introduce topics per day. Excursions prior/after congress allow foreign guests to see country &;need to be longer than day/half-day. Locals may not wish interruption of meeting. Registration fees have grown too much, perhaps in US the liquor contributed to this &;it might be less expensive in some other countries. Same for the banquet. One can 'vote' by not attending the latter, but this is not true of the former.

Man this meeting is long, but a lot of interesting stuff was presented.

Coffee/tea should be served in afternoon and evening (during evening sessions) too

1. Very much approved of large poster boards and having posters up for 2 days each. 2. August is probably the best month for most venues, but not necessarily always.

Excursions on Sunday (full day) : meeting on Thursday through Wednesday. Thurs.\Fri./Sat./ Sun./Mon./Tues./Wed. Start Excursions End. Same preplanned excursions for accompanying members. Others self-arranged. Format of this congress was good . It was too long

Fewer Nobel lectures. Good food! Tea twice a day.

1. Computers should be made available during excursion for those who stay behind. 2. More consultation on scheduling of parallel sessions eg MS03.03 Map Fitting should not have conflicted with MS 02.03.

It should be a priority that transport to and from the low cost accommodations is easy at the right times. This was not the case in Seattle- IUCr busses ($10 charge for the week) should have been organized to reduce the stress for those who cannot afford the Sheraton!

#9- the number was just right. If the number of days is reduced there would have to be more parallel sessions. This would be very unfortunate.

#3- near main congress venue. #6- always possible. #10- but fewer Nobel lectures etc. 1. No mention here of poster sessions! Sufficient time should be allowed for posters. They should be better grouped not neutron scattering with biology or different floor to inorganic structures. Shouldn't schedule eg., Nobel lectures to overlap with posters! 2. Congress is too large and somewhat unfocused, eg., neutron scattering remote from crystallography. 3. Hotels too expensive! Cheaper hotels are available in town.

It would be interesting to some discussion sessions. To some extent there is discussion in the form of questions after presentations but I would like to have longer discussion, eg., one hour discussion with a few invited people that represent the experts in the field and they would typically discuss a bit informally results and future. These fields of discussion are now only heard in front of posters etc., and as a non-expert you have difficulty picking up these kinds of discussions.

Adequate time for lunch and informal discussions. Fast-food feeding and lack of physical exercise reduces outcome. Coffee/tea break in the afternoon, please.

The conference is too long- an ideal length would be 4-5 days plus an excursion day ( a model adopted for many international meetings).

1. Some busses should be chartered to carry the delegates from their places of residence to the congress venue and back, (only at the beginning and end of the days sessions). 2. As far as possible all common functions (get-togethers, or anything of that type) arranged by the organizers should not be charged. If funding becomes a problem, such charges should be included in the registration fee. 3. Some more time should be devoted to the question hour after every lecture (at least 5 questions). It is beneficial to hear but it is more beneficial if every talk is given some reasonable time for discission if so desired.

There should be even more parallel sessions to decrease the length of the meeting. Some kind of socializing event was missing after the conference dinner.

The Nobel Laureates lectures were very good. This lecture should be also a part of the next congress.For my opinion there were to much lectures and symposia about proteins and macromolecules. But I know now that this is a very favorite subject in the states. Maybe there will be less in the next congress.

I strongly advocate a one-week congress with opening ceremonies Sunday and sessions running everyday until the following Saturday (noon at least). It is clear that a great many attendees are leaving Thursday and Friday as it is. It may be necessary to combine keynote lectures into the opening talk of a session (30-45 min), and have perhaps one half day plenary session.

I think that some informal interpersonal contacts during the IUCr congress is a very important part of the congress. And I also suggest to make one common full-day excursion for all participant (like beijing in 1993) the cost of which would be included in the registration fee. Such events as an excursion, a get together party, or a banquet should be organized in a time quite free from scientific sessions. In the Seattle congress some evening sessions overlapped the -rather expensive-congress banquet!

1. Five days should also be enough for a congress with more parallel sessions and 15 min talks. 2. Coffee in the afternoon after the poster sessions! 3. The convention center is a very nice place for this conference.

1. Refreshments in the afternoon. 2. A higher quality for all lectures.

#6- don't care; if good information is available. I found the keynote lectures to be most valuable for education about areas of crystallography less familiar to me, but also of great interest in my own areas of interest. Thus, I personally would ask for the same number of keynote lectures, but less in parallel with each other, perhaps dispersed throughout the day.

Keep the time table of the sessions (parallel for example) exactly. Better microphones, or usage advice. More computer connections.

Outdated lectures given by Laureates may no longer be necessary.

This congress was clearly too long.

#6 be flexible. In the case of synchrotron or neutron satellites these are definitely needed when there is the opportunity to hold them at a facility (assumed to be not at the same site as the congress itself). There may be similar situations involving major computer centers ie places with many high performance workstations as to cope with the computing school (an excellent chance to gather new students to meet/work with international experts). Other topics are unlikely to justify satellites.

#6- they will if the wish but something should be provided by conference organizers

#6- they can always do so! On a world meeting there must be enough value for the airfare (10 days). Students must have the opportunity to meet senior scientists (10 days, 1 excursion day).

1. It is world meeting. Shorter duration would make the airfare very high compared to the value of the meeting. 2. (#4) Students have to find time to find contacts and to talk to people. Others may want to talk to. 3. (#6) They can always do so if the like. 4. I liked the present structure with 3 parallel keynote lectures very much. 5. Many talks in the oral sessions were far below expected standards and the standard of the posters. Therefore more poster time and less time for boring talks would make the meeting more efficient.

It is necessary that the contributors are informed well in advance about the title(s) of the paper(s) that have been accepted and which one a particular author has to present. In this congress wrong information was sent which created problems for some authors. There should not be restrictions on the number of papers that could be presented as posters, provided that they are found to be worth acceptance. To charge more than one presentation by a single author does not appear to be academically appealing.

#10- but they should be 45 min only. Meeting is too long. Many marginal quality talks and very little time to browse through the numerous posters. Nobel talks; old stuff. Bad quality of slides &;overheads. Cutting down on time also cuts down on price, an interesting idea.

It is not possible for me to attend the full length of such a long congress. Reduce to less that 7 days, add special satellites at the same place.

The session could be extended until 8 pm to help with the compression of talks to time. Also themes could be better grouped over 1 or 2 days, rather than spread throughout the entire meeting, eg macromolecular. These changes would permit approx the same number of talks but over a better time period of a week.

#4- 2 half days #6- it should be like this year #10- they were very informative &;well chosen

#6- they should be free to do what they want

Banquet was robbery. $50 for that! The concert was very amateur like. Its ok if it's at home but not for the IUCr. The whole congress was very expensive.

Student accommodation should be either closer or transport made available. Relying on public transportation to transport so many people from halls to the conference at the same time in the morning resulted in long time to wait for buses and overcrowding making it difficult to arrive for lectures at 8:30. $50 seemed an awful amount of money for the meal we received and half a glass of wine. Young scientist mixer seemed to have a discrepancy on what was a young and only had beer and soft drinks to drink- not everyone likes beer.

I've enjoyed this conference, but I felt that there seemed to be so many sessions that I was unable to attend all the sessions I would have liked to. Whilst on certain days there was little that appealed to me, on other days I would have like to have attended 2 parallel ones. This, of course, is a very personal point of view, I'm sure others will have been happier. The bias did seem somewhat macromolecular however.

1. Seattle was hard to keep up with- too much was happening! Very good meeting though. 2. Meed more posters and fewer talks. There is more scope for information exchange by way of poster sessions. 3. Advice should be given to speakers and poster presenters on how to make clear talks or posters.

Joint meetings organized by two more commissions are desirable. If held away from each other the main congress meeting, it would be best if separated by 6 months or more from the date of the congress.

Well organized. Not enough time for questions &;discussion.

The schedules should be carefully followed during the parallel sessions. Otherwise, two problems arise: 1. It is not possible for a listener to make its own choices from a session to another. 2. The speakers at the end of the sessions may have the bad surprise to see a quasi-empty audience.

It has been frustrating to experience parallel sessions covering protein crystallography. I wonder whether shorter sessions would not be slightly better. Sessions of 2.5 hours are too long.

Poster sessions should be more than just two days each. Session chairs must hold speakers to schedule.

Some soft drinks should be for free the hole day, not only during a short coffee break. Poster sessions should have a better time, not the first after lunch. Room changes should be announced 3 days before, minimum. The public traffic system was bad. Delayed busses, no time tables at the shops, rarely good connections...should be improved by shuttle buses in many cases. Could be continued.

Overall the IUCr meeting in Seattle was excellent! For a meeting of this order is unimaginable, it couldn't have been better!

The congress has done a good job spreading out similar interest topics over the entire period of the meeting. This is very important giving so many parallel sessions going at the same time.

1. Allow two communications/posters per participant. 2. Make registration less expensive.

On the whole, the congress was organized and managed superbly. Probably better than any other IUCr- or any other large conference I have attended. The local arrangements committee deserves lavish praise. With one exception, the only mishaps were trivial or inevitable. My congratulations to the organizers! The sole exception-2 major blunders- was the failure to mail out the program and abstract books at least a month or two before the congress, I would have gladly paid $10-$20 to have received copies in advance, so as to be able to read the abstracts and plan my attendance. The attempted use of the internet was apathetically inadequate and time consuming makeshift.

An actual break for lunch and dinner would be nice. The program was very tight. Something but chlorinated water to drink between sessions and during poster sessions would be nice.

If student accommodation needs to be so far away either provide transport or allow time to travel to conference ie don't start so early. Try not to program so may interesting parallel macromolecular sessions together at the beginning. Keep some till the end of the week.$50 for the banquet! Was it really worth it? Expensive for students esp the drinks. Young scientists session where they can present work of get help and advice from older &;wiser scientists. Evening social program good esp. scientist center. Take a little more care about reading what people have written for e-mail address, I haven't seen mine printed right once!!!! But on the whole, a good conference.

1. Need at least one coffee break in the morning or every session &;for coffee- must be considered. 2. There must be an exclusive free excursion provided for guest/accompanying and the participants

Too many talks, regardless of scientific quality, are badly prepared &;delivered. Perhaps fewer talks would improve the standard.

1. Too much protein, not enough in the more exotic materials/small molecule things. 2. With the large excess of protein material, it would make sense to separate it and schedule the meeting so the entire last two days is protein material. The more general interest protein materials could then be spread over the other eight days along with a more balanced program of other areas of crystallography. 3. I like the format that puts the keynote lectures before morning break without competition. The open lunch break (which accommodates other small group type meetings and social interaction) and the poster period right after lunch without competition from oral sessions.

Coffee should be provided also in the afternoon coffee break.

Please concentrate the biological things a little bit in time, in order that crystallographers working on crystal physics and mathematics don't get lost among the huge amount of macromolecular structures.

There should be a pronounced program for the accompanying persons during day time.

The answers seem to be somehow contradictory, but they want to say, make a central program, including the very best speakers (internationally) and put the general scientific development info, the poster sessions, where anybody can pick things out corresponding to his personal interests.Do not put, again, the mathematical crystallography under the shortening aspect 'topology' which has a very special meaning in mathematics since Alexandroff, Thielfales, Meryer, Hausdorff, Urysohu etc.

This conference was too expensive and too long. Given the number of other meetings that present biological structure results, it's more clear the current format is a particularly attractive one for the macromolecular field.(There were far too many absent posters, evidence of a serious problem w/ this meeting.)

1. Why are we restricted to mostly male keynote speakers? There are many female crystallographers whose work is worthy. 2. The banquet was too expensive for many of us!3. As great as it was to pursue meeting offerings by WWW, we needed a tool to organize the volumes of information. Planning which days to be at the meeting, setting up a schedule ahead of time, etc., would have been facilitated. Perhaps by the time of the next meeting, such a 'cut &;paste' tool could be developed. Each of us could then have our own personalized meeting schedule. 4. Perhaps registrants could indicate ahead of the meeting their intended sessions, to prevent unfortunate overlap, and for assignment of proper spaces. 5. A 3-ring binder for the attendees, please! Then, one would carry a portion each day.

It is necessary to enlarge the program for accompanying persons. Less parallel microsymposia with an increase of the quality of invited speakers.

As far as possible, within related areas, the timetables should be synchronized so that attendees can switch microsymposia to hear different lectures/ lecturers.

The most frustrating experience is to see over representation of speakers from select elite labs and total neglect of the not-so-big labs. The congress should stick to one oral presentation per lab, rather than one per person. The current practice leads to monopolization by fewer powerful elite groups. This is not a healthy practice and does harm to people coming from small groups, particularly to those (like post-docs) who are ambitious to build independent careers. It has become very difficult to break the wall for them.

The receptions were both very good. Have another reception style evening were speeches are given. The banquet has become too unwieldy

The dinner was very expensive indeed for what it was. Should be tea in the afternoons.

Format of the IUCr '96 was fine we needed more time for lunch. Most of us would arrange meetings during the 12:30-2:50 slot, so we would miss the poster session. Loved the one day off in the middle to do tourist things.

My only suggestion is to have the name of the institution where the speaker is from printed after their name in the program book, so that you don't have to carry the abstract book with you all the time. Otherwise, I found the organization of this congress superb.

Registration fee should be reduced to reasonable level.

The poster sessions should be pre-screened by a team of references and selected. Half of the posters (at lest in the biomolecules) were about preliminary results with a conclusion of "more research needed, nothing can be said now" if this is so, than why present it at the congress, while it is good for a lab seminar or a workshop. We are flooded by an enormous amount of information. It will be better if we could have a device for more deep insight of selected, leading topics, more discussion (Alwyn Jones type!!!). Another important issue is the length of time before the abstract deadline and meeting. How about 10 weeks or so (no exceptions), 2 weeks for references to select and still enough time to printing.

1. Speakers should be encouraged/required to speak distinctly, clearly, loudly, understandably, while at the same time being utterly interested, interesting, and compelling. 2. If this is too tall an order, perhaps speakers should be forced to practice their talks at least once, in front of other people. 3. Please excuse any personal nature of this critism; however, I fully expect that future congresses would benefit greatly from a bit of extra effort from the great number of presenters. 4. This congress has been a wonderful source of knowledge and information. And I will undoubtedly choose to attend future meetings. The great effort of the organizers and speakers is patiently evident and is appreciated. Thank you for a very educational week!!!

Reduce cost of registration fee. Especially since no payment is made to invited speakers. Meeting cost is very expensive and in some ways prohibitive. More should be done to provide dining facilities on site. Attendees disperse after session and it is difficult to meet other members of the meeting.

Although a difficult task, shortening the length of the congress with selected talks that would update what is happening in the field with an introductory mini-review to get an audience up to speed with events. Keynote lectures are great because they set the tone for some of the seminars happening that day. Satellite meeting would occur before or after the main congress and would be much more in depth than the congress itself. Overall, I enjoyed the meeting very much, I learned a lot. Great organization &;congratulations to the organizers, great job!!!

#3- not sure what this means. #5- 1/2 day. #8 but short 1-1/2 hrs. In a very long meeting, some time out for excursion is a must, and this opportunity should be provided by the conference organizers. This need not be a full-day, unless logistics demand such. The concept of several sessions incorporating short talks around 'poster' presentations is a valuable one, which should be expanded. If the conference began on a Friday and ended the following Friday that would give a sufficiently large meeting and preserve the Saturday night stay over for low airfares.

Try to make the same hours in each session; it was nor easy to jump from session to session.

Hold satellites after main meeting.

#9- sometimes there were three sessions you wanted to go to, sometimes none of them. This might mean the topics were not divided over the different days very well. Anyhow, good congress.

1. Include lunch in price of registration. 2. Find somewhere where delegates may eat together sitting down. This would allow more discussion time in a social environment. 3. Make it cheaper. Many people were unable to attend due to the high cost.

It's inconvenient to members and discourteous to keynote lecture speakers for these lectures to have to compete with each other in parallel sessions. It's also contrary to the cross-disciplinary traditions of crystallography that members should be assured to have interests confined to particular subject areas. This year we have had an excellent array of keynote lectures, but, only able to attend at best a third of them. The keynote lectures should not be in parallel sessions at future congresses. For example they might be scheduled against poster sessions, so that one could attend which of the keynote lectures he wished, and still have an opportunity to see ant poster at another time in it's session. Or they could be shorter and presented in a series like the very successful Nobel Laureate lectures.

Keep crystallography under one roof; any split between powder, protein, organic, inorganic, etc. crystallography is dangerous omisation

1. The IUCr congress went extremely well at Seattle, better that some of the other conferences I've attended in the past, including an IUCr congress. 2. Keynote addresses, by far, are the most important presentations. It would be a great idea, if, either full write-ups, or, at least, extended abstracts of the keynote addresses are distributed during the congress. 3. Computations for a very large and integrated part of crystallographic research. If the computer school is held simultaneously, and, at the same venue as the congress, as a parallel activity, it would help visitors from developing countries both in terms of time and money. 4. Getting crystallographic software is a non-trivial problem for many of us. If authors who wish to give away their software free of cost can be encouraged to bring it and copy the service codes, setup files and standard input data sets, and install them on the computers, if participants are encouraged to take copies, it would be of great help to everyone concerned. 5. Many people in developing countries do not have access to electronic communication facilities. If the first circular of the next IUCr meeting is sent by airmail to all the participants of the present meeting it would make a big difference.

1. Structure sessions often collided with interesting other sessions, making it impossible to attend both. This was especially here at the beginning of the conference. 2. Some chairpersons mentioned revellent posters, bur not all did- it was difficult to find posters in the absence of search tool.

There was far too much overlap between sessions on structural biology. Some sessions were too specific, so talks became very detailed and difficult to follow if you were not in the field ( too much jargon). This problem can be overcome by having a shorter meeting and more satellites. 15-20 minute talks are a rotten format. They are too short to give a proper viewpoint, or to long as an 'appraiser' for the posters. So fewer more detailed talks interspersed with more flash presentations.

Less is sometimes more.

#6- it should be possible to do both. There should be better e-mail access.

A major problem in a large meeting like this is to find people you want to talk to. It's quite difficult to meet new people compared with smaller meetings. A very helpful thing would be some kind of central eating facility; this is the main thing that was missing sat this meeting. Alternately there should be some kind of social event every night. There are a lot of people at this meeting wandering around on their own. This is a real waste of opportunity.

Rather no banquet than a poor one. By the way, the opening mixer was great!

'Direct Methods', 'Map Fitting' and 'Electron Density Modification' sessions have run in parallel. However many people wanted to attend both of them.

The biggest problem is parallel sessions that cannot be attended at the same time.Badges should contain city and country!!!

The cost per night in Seattle was $100. The cost for food meant a total of at least $120 per day. Assuming there were 2000 participants this meant the free day (Tuesday) cost $250,000 at least, excluding excursion costs. In terms of financial stingarity, this is inexcusable. Poster sessions with wine in evening.

Many accompanying persons were disappointed with the absence of any formal program for spouses. There was too much overlap between Microsymposia concerning related topics eg in materials. Better to drop many of the oral contributions from submitted abstracts-leave these as posters &;rely on the session chairmen to produce a representation set of invited talks on each topic. Suggest two meetings, back-to-back, with a two-day overlap period.

1. Shuttle transportation is required for those living far from the conference site. This time it was a great problem for those living in the university dormitories to come to the keynote lectures and to stay for evening events. 2. I would take into consideration a very positive experience of the organization of ECM-95 in Lund, when all the participants lived in the same (and very good) hotel, and the differentiating in prices was achieved by varying the number of people sharing the same 2 room suite. Such an organization made it possible to put all the participants in equal position with respect to contacts with each other (the main aim of a congress) 3. More assistance (at least during the first days of the congress) with solving everyday problems, inevitably arising in a foreign country, would be appreciated.

Excellent except for two sessions overlapping with material in common.

Extremely good in Seattle:Enough space between subsequent rows of chairs in microsymposia to allow people to get in or move out without disturbing anybody. Problem in Seattle: The chairpersons of microsymposia on related topics should be in closer contact- in my opinion, several contributions were good, but slightly misplaced.

#4- or a choice as at this conference. #6- then if they want to yes, but there should be arranged excursions too. Janet Thornton could have held her keynote lecture more in the middle of the conference instead if the last day, Saturday. Her lecture was really great!

If the meeting is to last beyond 6 days, then an excursion in the middle is useful. As an exhibitor, I prefer exhibits to run in parallel with posters and be open as many days as possible (at least 5) before and after excursion.

Satellites should be in the same 'location' as the main congress.

A farewell party is absolutely necessary to say goodbye to fellow crystallographers.

Too many concurrent sessions on closely related subjects! For instance, Thursday afternoon had Inorganic &;Mineral Compounds, Phase Transitions I, Materials Science, and Diffraction Physics II, all at the same time. Also the room assignments did not always provide adequate seating. The small rooms generally did nor have good projection screens, making viewing difficult.

Excellent convention overall!! Thank you!! Problems: 1. Overlap of keynote speakers and sessions speakers i.e. Conflicts, so that you are forced to choose one or the other. 2. Access to the posters seemed limiting at times. Somedays, they were closed early at 7:30 pm instead of 9:00 pm. The speaker schedule could become exhausting, so I feel more generous amount of time should be allotted to quiet viewing of posters.

1. Parallel sessions: there should be no parallel sessions in similar or related fields, eg protein folding &;macromolecular structure prediction. 2. Choice of contributions: should experience more on methodological topics, new structures can be &;often have been read/published before or after the congress. 3. General organization: keep an eye on ecology, eg ask the organizers no to use thousands of plastic and paper cups, better are china cups. Instead of distributing congress bags, do that only on request- most people do not use them anyway. Better give congress cups to everyone and spread the saved money for free afternoon coffee. (This is a serious concern, not a joke.)

Well done meeting! I felt there could have been fewer sessions, although the chairing by young investigators is a welcome aspect of this year's sessions.

Young scientists should be encouraged more. There should be a job fair session. Selection of invited talks were unfair. For poster session experienced scientists must come and give their suggestion and encouragement.

Oral presentations at XVII have ranged from excellent to awful, with too many of the latter. More effort should be made to select good oral presenters and to put the rest in poster sessions. Organizers of oral sessions should be required to make special efforts to find good speakers who have good, new material to present. Fifteen minutes each should be enough time for most oral presentations. Maybe guidelines or instructions for making an oral presentation should be distributed with the registration material. Also, organization of posters by topic was not very successful at XVII. More attention should be given to the poster program!!! Provide free beer?

1. More methodology- less structures ie for protein crystallography. 2. Don't give speakers more than 20 minutes or less than 15 minutes. 3. No speakers should be allowed to go over time- the chairmen should take care of this properly. 4. If evening sessions, they can be allocated for poster sessions. The evening session should not end too late though. 5. Shorter lunch (1-1.5 hr) and more coffee breaks- bad backs suffer tremendously from sitting for hours and hours without breaks. 6. Session chairs should not be allowed to talk in their own session ( or to be co-author on more that one paper presented in that session).

There should be some way to shorten the Congress period. Maybe the MS could be arranged by topic not technique so not powder diffractions of macromolecules but zeolites or fullerenes or diffractions or peptides or etc... By using the WWW, it should be easy for the organizers to divide the contributed papers over the keynotes chosen. The authors could be asked not to give a topic number but a keyword instead.

This conference was a good one.

1. Standard length of talks in parallel in sessions eg., 25 min (independent discussion) so we can change more easily from one session to the other. 2. Keep the schedule: do not start with the next speaker if one other did not show up.

Many speakers appear unorganized and read over the time. They should be asked, before they accept, whether they are willing to prepare a disciplined talk.

If there is a large enough auditorium, plenary lectures should not run concurrently. They should give an overview of the field so that all participants have the possibility of getting updates or point aspects of crystallography. The speech is more important than the subject.

The Perth Congress was instructed to work on a length reduction of the standard by 1 day. That was so difficult the IUCr reverted to the current length at Bordeaux. Those who attend big meetings frequently prefer shorter meetings. Those who come infrequently prefer the longer format to maximize their return. The latter grout are likely to benefit more from the congress.The shorter formats would work if the Assembly is satisfied with the Executive and Commission nominations. In the event of a disagreement shortening the congress is difficult. This should be looked at. This problem id alleviated by the nomination of more candidates the positions, but it is not fully resolved.

1. Sessions from 3:30pm to 6:00 should have a coffee break in the middle. Coffee in the afternoon is essential. 2. Devote more time to hot new structures. Most lectures at the meeting dealt with 'old' stuff already published.

#1- 5 would be better. 1. Congress is much too long, 5 days max. (and expensive too) 2. Far too many protein structures and far too little methodology (this is a xtallographic meeting). 3. Evening sessions would make it more efficient (eg poster sessions with a bar). 4. The 8:30-9:30 time slot should be for posters, not for talks. 5. Session chairs should not be allowed to give talks themselves (or to co-author more than one talk). 6. All talks should be the same length (eg 30 minutes) and time should be kept much more stringently; this makes it easier to 'surf' from one session to another.

1. Posters open in evenings (with wine). More posters, fewer, longer talks. 2. Sessions open with overview given by proven speaker. 3. More methods- numerous showed this was popular. 4. Advice on slides, colors, size of script etc. 5. Rooms available for informal sessions. 6. Chairmen to take serious responsibility for their sessions.

1. Better selection of oral communications. They should be of larger interest. 2. The limit of one people- one communication is detrimental: may be it increases the participation, but is against the quality. 3. The organizing country should be less expensive.

There should be a session for qualitative powder diffraction by incorporating the satellite meeting (held in Denver this year). Denver Marriot Centre was not a good venue for a conference but students attend. Students cannot afford very much so why bleed them dry? The conference meals in Denver and here in Seattle were poor for the amount of money paid. Good point, I did like Seattle, good venue. Generally, get more material scientists involved so that we don't feel as if we are o the fringe of crystallography, when in fact were not. Maybe also have some kind of student session where students can get advice etc. after presenting their work. The reception the 1st night was excellent.

1. Lunch time sessions won't work because people want to eat and there will be loads of coming and going with people eating. 2. Better structure needed. Personally I would have keynotes after lunch and posters in the morning. 3. Time lectures better so people can change sessions without disturbing lectures halfway through. 4. Can we have a dinner where people feel like they get their moneys worth!!!! The meal in Seattle was pathetic!! For $50 I would expect to eat more than rabbit food with only 'one' glass of wine. Meal costing- starter $.50 main $5-10 dessert $3-5 which makes at least $30 for the Sheraton - lucky them!!!!

I fall asleep in early morning keynote lectures- could they start a little later?

Have 1/2 talks in every session, then there can be content &;discussion, and people can move between sessions. Else, what is the point of the congress.

Social program for accompanying persons desirable. Larger theaters/rooms needed for "popular" sessions. Questionnaire with registration perhaps?

Too expensive.

There should be more time for the poster sessions. Lots of the lectures/talks could have been presented as posters, reducing the number of parallel sessions. Talks about subjects that are also going to be presented as posters should be shorter.

Too many parallel sessions. Better selection of speeches. Being from US should not to be a selections criterium.

Avoid or reduce parallel sessions on closely related topics eg hot macromolecular and MAD &MIR;phasing. Extend poster sessions at the cost of lectures. I found it a good idea to keep speaking times flexible in the microsymposia. A short evening session (1.5 hr) would give space for more microsymposia and would also help reduce parallel sessions.

#6- yes, if it possible to organize that in the host city without too many hassles. Too many parallel sessions defeat the purpose of having a general meeting. This congress seems more like an accommodation of specialist meetings than one general meeting.

The policy of not allowing a person to present more that one communication (to else pay $80 to have a poster, when there were dozens of empty panels) should be abandoned. Peoples from far away countries can not afford to send more that one person, and they cannot present the full range of work they are doing.

In my opinion there are enough national, local, regional, and continental meetings for an IUCr congress to be as specific as this one has been. People come to an international meeting like this to see and hear real first names teaching and talking about historical or novel main results, not to see PhD students practicing their talking skills nor to hear lectures so specific as to keep attention of not even the first row of attendees.

The present format, with a day's break at mid-week, allows people the option to attend half the congress. However, fewer parallel oral sessions and more posters would make for a less hectic congress. Satellites, joint with other groups/societies, may be a valuable way to expand the scope/impact of the IUCr congresses. It would be hard to shorten the meeting and still do justice to all aspects of crystallography.

1. Being on time is a good practice. Please make sure that all chairperson and co-chairs know they have to begin the session on time. 2. All speakers are also suppose to observe the time given to them. If they cannot tell their stories in the time limit given, they just have to stop. 3. All chairs &;speakers are supposed to make an appointment to meet before the sessions begin so that they know how to operate the overhead projector &;slide projector. And also to be briefed about being on time.

#4- organized tours available #6- at the conference venue #10- 4 per day

Timetable of parallel sessions should be better synchronized to ease switching between sessions.

Thanks for a very well organized meeting! Only a few comments: I think there were too many microsymposia, too many posters, too many talks.In my opinion approx. Half the talks were badly prepared and/or badly presented. At the moment I have no idea how to avoid that, but maybe someone does have a suggestion.

#4- included in the registration fee #6- but at the venue of the conference #9- 4 or less #10- 2 per day

Satellite meetings should be in the years between the IUCr meetings.

Some sessions could be a 1/4 day long.

This meeting has already included 'satellites' within it, eg high pressure. Excursion could be whole day or 2 half-days. The only other thing to happen on this day(s) might be special workshops with specific registration. Attendees can only make their own excursion arrangements if information is available- and more obviously than in Seattle down on 1st floor beyond Grey Line, but extra option could be available for this. Evening sessions to be very special interest- teaching, history, art etc. Parallel &;keynote sessions- a number of these may need to be variable, eg methods appeal more widely than some results which are very specialists. All keynote lectures should be required to address it to a generalists audience.

1. Far too many talks we have heard in substance part before- apparently speakers invited for who they are and not because they have something new of exciting to report. 2. Program organizers might issue guidelines to speakers regarding quality of slides or overheads before the conference. Some have been badly hand-written, very dark, of huge tables of data- all hopeless. The quality of english has also often left a lot to be desired- to the point os some talks being incomprehensible. 3. It has been very difficult to get breakfast at the U of Wash. halls and get in for 8:30 keynote lectures. A little more consideration in timing is needed- also true of banquet day!- sessions ended just 20-30 minutes before the banquet started. 4. The conference dinner should be much better vale for money. For $50 the drinks should flow all night, the starter should have meat/fish/paté not just leaves, there should be cheese, biscuits &;mints with coffee, then port or brandy. What a waste of money- a disgrace!!! 5. Apart from the banquet, Seattle social events have been excellent, more of the same please. 6. 2 1/2 hr sessions are too long, give us a break somewhere. There may be less disruption by people moving in &;out during sessions as a result. 7. In the present format, with so many parallel sessions, it is not acceptable to allow sessions to run early if a speaker finishes early or fails to turn up. The chairman should take a short break to allow others from parallel sessions to see the talks when they are scheduled. Chairmen should equally be strict with those likely to overrun. Explicit instructions from organizers should help here- some did this in Seattle and it worked well in some sessions. 8. It was very disappointing to find tea/coffee not available throughout the day (or at least morning and afternoon). The conference fee should surely cover this. 9. Often several parallel sessions I wished to see at the same time- then a day and a half of little interest. Perhaps a little better planning required to keep similar topic from overlapping. Fewer parallel sessions would help here.

Relating to the Seattle congress: Too many keynote lectures- not all of best quality. Too many parallel sessions.

1. Have (some) plenary lectures instead of parallel keynote lectures. 2. Give scientific activities on excursion day- not everyone wants/can afford ( in time or money) a whole day off. 3. Oral session too long- difficult to concentrate from 8:30am-1:30pm. Start at 9 am.

Plenary lectures instead of keynotes- one lecture each session that can be attended by all participants.Do not allow sessions to be moved eg., the phase transformations session.

If there will be as many parallel sessions as now a closed television setup with monitors outside will reduce disturbance and clarity.

Talks should be 10+2, and 20+5. There should be no longer talks. If keynote lecturer, then 40+5 mins. For hot structures in particular, 15 min is too long. Posters were not easy- guide required, ie. Why not using the PS numbers for boards and do not swap these assignments during the meeting. Room assignments must match this; ie. Small molecules up / Macromolecules down.

Good meeting.

Lunches should be include/provide in the fees...

1. Let not the last day be a half a day session. (almost) nobody stays till the last day if there is a half day session. 2. Coffee &;donuts ( or cakes) must be provided both during the morning &;afternoon sessions. 3. Arrangement for cheaper accommodations. More of them for students and poorer researchers.

A large part of the IUCr has been devoted to biological macromolecules, small molecular (organic &;inorganic) and it is a good thing. Instrumentation, experimental techniques, structure determination computing were also well documented. In the opposite way, the group of scientists working on synthetic macromolecules or more simply 'polymers' was a little bit restricted. One reason is perhaps the fact that there does not exist any commission on polymers in the IUCr? Another reason is perhaps that a satellite meeting has been devoted to polymers at approximately the same time as this meeting?

1. Vet speakers- many were very poor. 2. 6 days should be the absolute limit for the 'main business'. Open on the evening of the day previous to the 6.3. Strange program so there are obvious gaps in interest, (ie no macromolecular on one day , no small molecular on another.) so that attendees can make their own arrangements for excursions for one day. 4. Most (if not all) IUCr business should be conducted in a pre-conference seminar- it's constant intrusions makes a misery of the scientific proceedings.