CECAM (Centre Européen de Calcul Atomique et Moléculaire) promotes fundamental research on advanced computational methods and their application to important problems in frontier areas of science and technology.

24 Institutions from 14 European countries, including Ministries, National Research Councils, Research and High Performance Computing Centres, Universities, fund CECAM and concur in defining its strategy and activities.

The original focus of CECAM were atomistic and molecular simulations, applied to the physics and chemistry of condensed matter. During our first fifty years of service to the community, however, powerful advances in computer hardware and software have supported the extension of these methods to a wide range of problems in materials science, biology and medicinal chemistry. CECAM has always been very attentive to such developments and has helped to foster many of them to the point that computer simulation is now considered to be a third way of doing science; a new way of linking theory and experiment. The importance of simulation then continues to grow in many emerging areas and CECAM evolves its scope and structure to address these changes. For example, our communities are particularly interested in multiscale modelling of phenomena from a quantum to a constitutive equation description. CECAM also recognises the importance of new statistical techniques that can extract relationships directly from data and of developments in data driven initiatives, including machine learning and artificial intelligence.

To fulfil CECAM mission, 17 nodes have been established across Europe and in Israel to work alongside the headquarters in Lausanne. CECAM activities, across all of the nodes, include the organisation of scientific workshops in emerging areas; advanced schools to train at the graduate and postdoctoral level; workshops on algorithmic and software development and exploitation; brain-storming and problem solving events; the development of collaborative research projects for Europe and beyond; and the sponsorship of an international visitors programme. We welcome applications to organise events and to establish networks through CECAM from everybody interested in computational science.

With the continuing support of scientists in Europe and around the world, CECAM will keep identifying new, interesting directions in the domain of atomistic and materials modelling, inspire exciting activities and stimulate productive collaborations. Together, we shall endeavour to fulfil and enrich CECAM’s mission and contribute to transmit its values to new generations of scientists.