British Combinatorial Committee

The British Combinatorial Committee is a body which works for the support of combinatorial and discrete mathematics in the United Kingdom. The Committee is a charity, registered in Scotland, number SC019723. Its current constitution was approved at the Business Meeting of the British Combinatorial Conference in 2019.

The committee’s function is to “encourage the study of combinatorial mathematics”. 

One of the ways we do this is by providing financial support for conferences in combinatorics. For the convenience of potential applicants, we have produced guidelines for applicants about what we can and cannot fund. Applications for funding should be addressed to the Secretary in the first instance. For further information, please see our Opportunities.

In conjunction with local organisers, the British Combinatorial Committee runs the biennial British Combinatorial Conference. It features a volume of proceedings entitled 'Surveys in Combinatorics', published by Cambridge University Press. As of 2022, the Committee awards a prize for the best PhD thesis in combinatorics completed at a UK university. We also publish the annual British Combinatorial Bulletin as well as the more frequent British Combinatorial Newsletter. Learn more about some of our Highlights.

History

The Committee was founded in 1977, with Richard Rado as chair. An article by Norman Biggs describes the prehistory of the Committee. Subsequently the chair was held by Dominic Welsh (1983-1987), Crispin Nash-Williams (1987-1994) and Peter Cameron (1994-2022).