Every year on the first days of May, Voronezh hosts mathematicians from many cities of Russia and abroad: speakers and attendees of the Voronezh Spring School of Mathematics. The name “school” is a relative term since its participants include not only undergraduate and postgraduate students, but also PhD and DSc holders and even members of academies of sciences. Among its lecturers are leading scientists from various scientific centres of Russia. School sessions are devoted to current issues of contemporary mathematics: from its abstract branches to the analysis of applied mathematical models and issues related to teaching mathematics.
The conference has been held by Voronezh State University annually since 1986. Since 1993, within the framework of the school, Voronezh State University in collaboration with Steklov Mathematical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences has been holding “Pontryagin Readings” named after a prominent Soviet mathematician of the twentieth century Lev Pontryagin (the conference “Pontryagin Readings” used to take place in Kemerovo).
This year, the spring school of mathematics was held between 4 and 8 May and brought together over 100 researchers from 24 cities of Russia. Among the participants of the conference were 17 Voronezh mathematicians and 13 speakers from abroad: the United States, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan. The conference was attended by scientists from Moscow, Saratov, Vladikavkaz, Simferopol, Perm, and Grodno (Belarus).
Opening speeches were delivered by Oleg Kozaderov, Vice-Rector for Research, Innovations, and Digitising at VSU, Maria Burlutskaya, Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics, and the Deputy Chairs of the Organising Committee: Igor Lomov, Acting Head of the Department of General Mathematics at the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics of Moscow State University, Avgust Khromov, professor at the Department of Differential Equations and Mathematical Economics at Chernyshevsky Saratov National Research University, and Alexey Borovskikh, professor at the Department of Differential Equations at the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University.
“Why Voronezh? A convenient geographical location of the region, a powerful mathematical school, and visits of prominent scientists from leading research centres of the country have always attracted the mathematical community to Voronezh and its schools. As for Voronezh, conferences have always cherished creativity and provided an opportunity to meet up with other researchers, to discuss current issues, and to establish scientific contacts at your home university. And the challenge that Voronezh mathematicians face in the first place is to preserve this interest, to preserve the tradition of gathering together on the festive days of May,” said Oleg Kozaderov at the opening of the conference.
This year, the conference was dedicated to the memory and the 75th anniversary of Professor Yuri Sapronov, a Voronezh mathematician. His life and research have shaped an important part of the history of the Voronezh mathematics. On 6 May, the birthday of Yuri Sapronov, a meeting was held within the framework of the school during which relatives, classmates, colleagues, students, and even teachers of the professor shared their memories of the talented scientist and his outstanding achievements.
The five day conference included 14 lectures and about 100 speeches. Approximately a quarter of the presentations were delivered in person and broadcast live, while the remaining reports were delivered online. The presentations covered the following areas: partial differential equations; qualitative and spectral theory of boundary value problems for ordinary differential equations; theory of operators; geometry and analysis; optimal control, extremum problems, game theory, etc.
The school included a meeting of a student section, at which speeches were delivered by senior students whose reports were distinguished at the scientific session of VSU.
Among the participants of the school of mathematics was an Associate Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, over 60 DSc and about 40 PhD holders (degrees in Physics, Mathematics, and Technical Sciences). One sixth of the conference participants were undergraduate and postgraduate students.
