The 83rd Executive Council Meeting (ECM-83) was held at the Hotel des Baines in Saillon, Switzerland on February 21, 1999. A brief summary of the many issues discussed at the meeting and the associated Committee and Divisional meetings are incorporated here together with other activities during the first half of 1999.

All those interested in the activities of the Union are encouraged to view the details on the IUVSTA web site, the address of which is http://www.iuvsta.org/

At ECM-83, an application for membership of the Union from the Pakistan Vacuum Society was given provisional approval. Full membership requires approval at the next General Meeting, GM-14, scheduled for San Francisco, USA in 2001. Meanwhile, the Pakistan Vacuum Society can send non-voting representatives to the Executive Council Meetings.

It was decided, where possible, to schedule Executive Council meetings one year in advance to allow attendees to better plan their activities. It was decided that ECM-84 will be held in Cancun, Mexico September 3-5, 1999 and that ECM-85 will be held in Namur, Belgium, March 31-April 2, 2000. The locations of the ECM meetings are determined by invitations from Member Societies.

The 3rd IUVSTA/ICTP Thin Film School was held in Trieste in March. Several Workshops will be held during 1999, as listed under IUVSTA Sponsorship.

The first IUVSTA Summer School will be held in Cortona, Italy, 18-24 July, 1999. The topic is "Quantum devices and Nanostructures"

Information on upcoming workshops can be obtained through the Diary on the web page.

Information on upcoming conferences can be obtained through the Diary on the web page. The 11th International Confernce on Thin Films is being organized by the Mexican Vacuum Society on behalf of the Thin Film Division of IUVSTA. It will be held in Cancun, Mexico from 30 August to 3 September, 1999.

Four of the seven requests for sponsorship were approved. These were:

• 24th Workshop on Superlattice and Microstructure to be held in Cancun, Mexico in August, 1999 as a satellite meeting of the ICTF-11
• 25th Workshop on Gas-surface interactions: Electronic structure, Dynamics and Reactivity to be held in Liebnitz, Austria, 26-29 September, 1999
• 26th Workshop on Surface Holography and Other Direct Methods to be held in Hong Kong in August,2000
• 27th Workshop on Dynamical Phenomena related with Electrons at Surfaces to be held in Kushiro, Japan in January, 2001
• A fifth workshop on Near Surface Analysis using Ion Beam Techniques was given provisional approval.

It was reported at ECM-83 that, under the Visual Aids Editor, Prof. Leck, good progress was being made in updating and expanding the program with several revised or new modules near completion.

Dr. F.R. Shepherd was appointed as the new Administrator of the Welch Scholarship after the resignation of Dr. W.D. Westwood. The amount of the Scholarship was increased from US12,500 to US$15,000 for the 2001 Scholarship. Information on the Scholarship and application forms can be found on the web page.

At the end of May, the Trustees awarded the 2000 Scholarship to Dr. Erik Svedberg of Linköping University, Sweden to carry out post-doctoral research on "Material Growth and Device Investigations Concerning the Role of Strong Orientation on New Magnetic Field Sensors" at the Seagate Research Institute in Pittsburg, USA.

At ECM-83 it was announced that 2500GBP was available in the form of Elsevier Awards to support the participation of students at ICTF-11 in Mexico.