Melbourne to host IPAC in 2019

MELBOURNE, Australia – The capital of Victoria, Australia, will host the International Particle Accelerator Conference in May 2019.

IPAC will bring in approximately 1,000 delegates for six days at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) with an estimated economic contribution of approximately $5 million to the state.

Melbourne’s winning bid was presented in Korea by Mark Boland, Principal Scientist, Accelerator Physics, Australian Synchrotron and the overall bid development was supported by Dr. Dean Morris, Head of Corporate Services, at the Australian Synchrotron.

Melbourne Convention Bureau CEO Karen Bolinger said that the process used to win the IPAC 2019 conference was a good illustration of the collaborative nature of all Melbourne bids, leveraging Melbourne’s IQ as well as its unique destination appeal.

“Over the past few years, MCB and the Australian Synchrotron have collaborated on a number of bids to be the host institute for a variety of international conferences spanning all fields associated with synchrotron science.

“MCB and the Australian Synchrotron worked together to identify meetings where they could offer a substantial contribution and where Melbourne would be an ideal destination as a host city.

“MCB then collaborated with the Synchrotron team – all leaders in their respective fields – to prepare a comprehensive bid proposal that demonstrated the intellectual capital available to delegates attending the conference. This approach has seen MCB and the Synchrotron team successfully secure six international meetings between April 2013 and October 2015.

“IPAC 2019 is our seventh collaborative win and the biggest so far.”

Dean Morris, Head of Corporate Services at the Australian Synchrotron, said that hosting IPAC 2019 in Melbourne will provide a unique opportunity to showcase the Australian Synchrotron to attendees.”

“In its seven years of operation, the Australian Synchrotron – one of only two such facilities in the Southern Hemisphere – has helped forge many international partnerships and collaborations between Australia and other researchers around the world.

“Most recently, it has been a founding partner in the Australian Collaboration for Accelerator Science, which seeks to raise the profile of Australian Accelerator Science in the world community. Hosting IPAC in 2019 would be the flagship event for this collaboration, and would firmly place Australia on the world science map.”

The IPAC 2019 bid was won with the help of three regional organisations acting as the international conference committee: the European Physical Society Accelerator Group (EPS-AG); the American Physical Society Division of Physics of Beams (APS-DPB); and the Asian Committee for Future Accelerators (ACFA).