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The role and significance of the World Federation of National Mathematics Competitions in the International Mathematics Education Community

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Abstract

The World Federation of National Mathematics Competitions (WFNMC) was founded in 1984 as a professional organization that provides the possibility of international collaboration among mathematicians and mathematics educators working in the area of mathematics contests. Over the last decades the field, which has come to be called “competition mathematics for school students”, has developed new methods for two important activities in mathematics education, namely, problem posing and problem solving. Because of this development, competition mathematics has shaped itself into a separate branch of mathematics education with its particular features, trends and needs. It not only contains the seeds of many fields of contemporary mathematics, but has also stimulated rich contributions to important research areas of mathematics education, in the intersection of the interests of both professional communities. Mathematics competitions serve also to identify mathematical talent worldwide and to promote the attraction of young people of higher ability to professional careers in mathematics. In many cases, problems posed in mathematical contests inspire mathematical research and new methods of teaching mathematician. In this paper I briefly describe the history of WFNMC. I focus on the main activities of the Federation, including conferences, awards, publications, and research areas of the members. As the only international professional organization in this field, the WFNMC supports activities that have their own particular significance, which are discussed in the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, University of Sofia, Sofia, Bulgaria

    Kiril Bankov

  2. Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria

    Kiril Bankov

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  1. Kiril Bankov
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Appendix 1

Appendix 1

WFNMC Presidents

Peter O’Halloran (Australia), from 1984 to 1994.

Blagovest Sendov (Bulgaria), from 1994 to 1996.

Ronald Dunkley (Canada), from 1996 to 2000.

Peter Taylor (Australia), from 2000 to 2004.

Petar Kenderov (Bulgaria), from 2004 to 2008.

Maria Falk de Losada (Colombia), from 2008 to 2012.

Alexander Soifer (USA), from 2012 to 2018.

Kiril Bankov (Bulgaria), 2018 to the present.

WFNMC Conferences

WFNMC-1: Waterloo (Canada), 1990

WFNMC-2: Pravets (Bulgaria), 1994

WFNMC-3: Zhongshan (China), 1998

WFNMC-4: Melbourne (Australia), 2002

WFNMC-5: Cambridge (United Kingdom), 2006

WFNMC-6: Riga (Latvia), 2010

WFNMC-7: Barranquilla (Colombia), 2014

WFNMC-8: Semriach (Austria), 2018

The next Conference is planned to take place in Bulgaria in 2022.

WFNMC award winners

David Hilbert Award

1991: Arthur Engel (Germany), Edward Barbeau (Canada), Graham Pollard (Australia)

1992: Martin Gardner, (USA), Murray Klamkin (Canada), Marcin E Kuczma (Poland)

1994: Maria Falk de Losada (Colombia), Peter J O'Halloran (Australia)

1996: Andy Liu (Canada)

Paul Erdős Award 

1992: Luis Davidson (Cuba), Nikolay Konstantinov (Russia), John Webb (South Africa)

1994: Ronald Dunkley (Canada), Walter Mientka (USA), Qiu Zonghu (China), Urgengtserengiin Sanjmyatav (Mongolia), Jordan Tabov (Bulgaria), Peter Taylor (Australia)

1996: George Berzsenyi (USA), Tony Gardiner (UK), Derek Holton (New Zealand)

1998: Agnis Andzans (Latvia), Wolfgang Engel (Germany), Mark Saul (USA).

2000: Francisco Bellot Rosado (Spain), Istvan Reiman (Hungary), János Surányi (Hungary)

2002: Bogoljub Marinkovic (Yugoslavia), Harold Braun Reiter (USA), Wen-Hsien Sun (Taiwan)

2004: Warren Atkins (Australia), André Deledicq (France), Patricia Fauring (Argentina)

2006: Simon Chua (Philippines), Ali Rejali (Iran), Alexander Soifer (USA). Move this row to the right so that it is aligned with the above row.

2008: Hans-Dietrich (Dieter) Gronau (Germany), Bruce Henry (Australia), Leou Shian (Taiwan)

2010: Rafael Sanchez-Lamoneda (Venezuela), Yahya Tabesh (Iran).

2012: Cecil C Rousseau (USA), Paul Vaderlind (Sweden).

2014: Petar Stoyanov Kenderov (Bulgaria), József Pelikán (Hungary), Richard Rusczyk (USA)

2016: Luis Caceres (Puerto Rico), David Christopher Hunt (Australia), Kar-Ping Shum (Hong Kong, China)

2018: Bin Xiong (China), David Monk (UK), Carlos Gustavo Tamm de Araujo Moreira (Brazil)

2020: Gangsong Leng (China), Jaromír Šimša (Czech Republic), Jaroslav Švrček (Czech Republic)

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Bankov, K. The role and significance of the World Federation of National Mathematics Competitions in the International Mathematics Education Community. ZDM Mathematics Education 54, 961–970 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-022-01329-7

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