In addition to the Executive Committee which administers the International Mathematical Union in general, various Committees and Commissions address specific issues on the IMU agenda. In general, Commissions are established by the IMU members and are supposed to have a long lifetime, see item IV. of the IMU Statutes, while Committees can be established by the EC and/or the IMU General Assembly, usually for a special short to medium term purpose.
Of very short term are the Committees set up and elected at the beginning of each meeting of the General Assembly. These are the
The roles these Committees play and the membership of these Committees at the last General Assembly in Bangalore can be found here.
Of particular importance is the election of the members of the EC, ICMI, CDC and ICHM.The election rules are described in the Procedures for the Election that were adopted by the IMU Assembly in Bangalore 2010. A IMU Nominating Committee forms the slates for the IMU EC, CDC and ICHM, while a special ICMI Nominating Committee forms the slate for the ICMI EC.
Beginning in January 2011 the work done so far by CDE and DCSG (see below) is continued by CDC.
The International Commission on the History of Mathematics is an inter-union commission joining the International Mathematical Union and the Division of the History of Science (DHS) of the International Union for the History and Philosophy of Science (IUHPS). The ICHM has the following international aims: (a) to encourage the study of the history of mathematics; and (b) to promote a high level of historically and mathematically sophisticated scholarship in the field.
The IMU participates in the ICHM activities via appointing two IMU representatives as members of the ICHM Executive Committee.