History

IUPAP was established in 1922 in Brussels with 13 member countries: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Holland, Japan, Norway, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States of America and the Union of South Africa. The need to create a Physics Union was decided at the 1922 General Assembly of the International Research Council (IRC) that had been established in 1919 to coordinate international efforts in the different branches of science. The first president of the IUPAP was sir William Henry Bragg, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1915. Edmond Van Aubel and Henri Abraham were elected Vice President and Secretary, respectively. Sir Bragg served a period of nine years from 1922 through 1931.

As part of the celebrations for its Centennial, the IUPAP Executive Council has launched the project entitled “One Hundred Years of IUPAP: A History”, under the direction of Roberto Lalli. The project involves the digitization of institutional archival documents of the Union. This implies an important effort given that the documents are currently spread in various archives. The digitized documents will be made available for historical research and will constitute the primary source of information for a scholarly process, which will be concluded by a two-day academic workshop on the history of IUPAP in the last hundred years and the publication of a book.

Read more about the first 70 years of IUPAP