The International Colloquium on Group Theoretical Methods in Physics (ICGTMP)[1] is an academic conference devoted to applications of group theory to physics. It was founded in 1972 by Henri Bacry and Aloysio Janner. It hosts a colloquium every two years. The ICGTMP is led by a Standing Committee, which helps select winners for the three major awards presented at the conference: the Wigner Medal (1978–2018), the Hermann Weyl Prize (since 2002) and the Weyl–Wigner Award (since 2022).
The Wigner Medal was an award designed "to recognize outstanding contributions to the understanding of physics through Group Theory". It was administered by The Group Theory and Fundamental Physics Foundation, a publicly supported organization.[2] The first award was given in 1978 to Eugene Wigner at the Integrative Conference on Group Theory and Mathematical Physics.[3]
The collaboration between the Standing Committee of the ICGTMP and the Foundation ended in 2020.
The Standing Committee does not recognize the post-2018 Wigner Medals awarded by the Foundation as the continuation of the prize from 1978 through 2018.[4]
In 2020–21, the ICGTMP Standing Committee created a new prize to replace the Wigner Medal, called the Weyl–Wigner Award. The purpose of the Weyl–Wigner Award is "to recognize outstanding contributions to the understanding of physics through group theory, continuing the tradition of The Wigner Medal that was awarded at the International Colloquium on Group Theoretical Methods in Physics from 1978 to 2018." The recipients of this prize are chosen by an international selection committee elected by the Standing Committee.
The first Weyl–Wigner Award was awarded in Strasbourg in July 2022 during the ICGTMP Group34 Colloquium to Nicolai Reshetikhin.
The Hermann Weyl Prize was established to award young scientists "who have performed original work of significant scientific quality in the area of understanding physics through symmetries".[5]
Heinz-Dietrich Doebner convinced the Standing Committee that it would be necessary for the future development of the field to acknowledge young researchers who presented outstanding work and to motivate them, to continue and to diversify their activity. He proposed to award in each Colloquium a Prize. Ivan Todorov suggested to name this Prize after the mathematician and physicist Hermann Weyl. The first Weyl Prize was awarded in 2002 to Edward Frenkel.[citation needed]
