The 38th International Conference on Solution Chemistry was hosted by two universities from two countries, the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and the University of Novi Sad, Serbia in the Hotel Metropol Palace in Belgrade, Serbia from 9–14 July 2023. The conference was chaired by Professor Marija Bešter-Rogač (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) and Professor Slobodan Gadžurić (University of Novi Sad, Serbia). 38ICSC received financial support from IUPAC, Springer, and the Serbian Ministry of Science, Innovations, and Technological Development.

The conference covered ten scientific topics: Ionic liquids, solution thermodynamics, biochemical effects in solutions, solubility phenomena and phase equilibria, solution structure and dynamics, supercritical fluids and solutions under extreme conditions, colloids and interfaces, computational solution chemistry, general solution chemistry and the Industrial applications of solutions.

After the 37ICSC, which was successfully held in an online format due to the pandemic, the 38ICSC continued to attract the international scientific community engaged in various aspects of solution chemistry and attracted worldwide attention. More than 130 registered participants from 30 countries brought together new results of their scientific work and presented and discussed the new findings on various scientific and technological issues related to solution chemistry. The conference provided an ideal atmosphere for a successful exchange of ideas for all participants from leading researchers to younger scientists. The scientific program of 38ICSC included a wide variety of basic, as well as more applied topics in solution chemistry. Most biologically important chemistry takes place in solution or at the interface between solution and surface. The same holds for many technological processes trying to understand many important phenomena that occur in the solutions on a molecular basis. This was precisely the goal of this conference, which gathered theoretical scientists doing computer simulations together with experimentalists and applied scientists.

During the five days of the conference, invited speakers delivered 6 plenary and 13 keynote talks in three parallel sessions. The plenary speakers were Ying Jiang (Beijing University, China), Slavica Ražić (University of Belgrade, Serbia), Robin D. Rogers (University of Alabama, USA), Hajime Torii (Shizuoka University, Japan), Lourdes Vega (Khalifa University Abu Dhabi, UAE) and Tom Welton (Imperial College London, UK) and keynote Tadafumi Adschiri (Tohoku University, Japan), Tamal Banerjee (Department of Chemical Engineering, Guwahati, India), Ranjan Dey (Department of Chemistry, BITS Pilani, South Goa, India), Éva Anna Enyedy (University of Szeged, Hungary), Sofia Gama (University of Lisbon, Portugal & University of Białystok, Poland), Johannes Hunger (Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany), Maria José Lourenço (University of Lisbon, Portugal), Natalie Malikova (Sorbonne Université Paris, France), Jalel Mhalla (University of Monastir, Tunisia), Christian Schröder (University of Vienna, Austria), Thierry Tassaing (Université Bordeaux, France), Tomaž Urbič (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia), Edgar Vargas (University of Los Andes, Columbia) and Yongquan Zhou (Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China).

The program was compiled from 66 oral to 46 poster presentations, and the five young researchers Andrijana Bilić (University of Novi Sad, Serbia), Domen Goste (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia), Lukas Magenheim (TU Wien, Austria), Pavlina Matysova (University Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic) and Aditi Prabhune (Department of Chemistry, Goa, India) were awarded for the best poster presentations sponsored by Springer. During this conference, the IUPAC representative Glenn Hefter gave a presentation on the various activities of IUPAC.

The 39ICSC conference will take place in Monastir, Tunisia, in September 2025. You are cordially invited to contribute to its scientific excellence!