History
The IUPAC Symposium of Photochemistry originates from a meeting organized by the legendary photochemist George Hammond in Strasbourg in 1964. While the focus initially was on organic photochemical reactions, its scope was broadened over the years to cover the whole field of photochemistry.
A personal account of the history of the Symposium by Silvia Braslavsky was published in the newsletter of the European Photochemistry Association in 2016.
The IUPAC Symposium on Photochemistry is organized in the even calendar years. Traditionally, it is located in Europe, but in 2006 and 2016 the conference was in Japan (Kyoto 2006, Osaka 2016). Recent symposia were held in Osaka 2016 and Dublin 2018. The location for PhotoIUPAC2022 will be announced during the conference.
In the odd calendar years the photochemistry community can enjoy our “sister conference”, the International Conference on Photochemistry, which was held recently in Strasbourg (2017), Boulder (2019) and which will take place in Geneva in 2021.