The International Conference on” Variational Methods and Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations” was held at AMSS on April 16 to 19, 2012. More than 120 experts from America, France, Australia, Italy, etc. attended the conference. Prof. ZHANG Zhitao from AMSS and Prof. DU Yihong from Australia presided over the opening ceremony of the conference.

The aim of the conference was to disseminate recent research developments in the area of variational methods and nonlinear partial differential equations, and to promote collaborations among the participants. More than 30 plenary talks were given by experts including CAS Academician Prof. LONG Yiming, Prof. E. N. Dancer from The University of Sydney, Australia and so on, which focused on elliptic and parabolic equations and their various applications, as well as on abstract tools based on variational methods applicable to these equations.

It was organized by Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The sponsors include Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Mathematics & Hua Loo-Keng Key Laboratory, CAS, Mathematics and Physics/Engineering Interdisciplinary Research, National Center for Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Sciences, CAS, Henan Normal University and National Natural Science Foundation of China.