From June 7 to 12, 2026, the 30th International Conference on Coordination and Bioinorganic Chemistry (ICCBIC) was held at Smolenice Castle, in the Congress Center of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. The conference is held every two years and is organized by the Slovak Chemical Society in cooperation with the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. This year’s ICCBIC conference was titled “Coordination and Bioinorganic Chemistry After the First Quarter of a Century.”
Conferences on coordination chemistry have been held regularly in Slovakia (formerly Czechoslovakia, Central Europe) since 1964. It is the only regular scientific event in the field of coordination and bioinorganic chemistry in Central Europe. Over the course of its sixty-year history, many leading coordination chemists from around the world have participated in ICCBIC, including E.I. Solomon, J. Reedijk, A. Hauser, and others.
A formal ceremony was held during the conference, at which the Ján Gažo Award was presented to Professor Juraj Černák, a distinguished scientist at the Faculty of Science of the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice.
The award was presented by Prof. Ing. Viktor Milata, DrSc. (Honorary President of the Slovak Chemical Society), in the presence of Prof. Ing. Peter Segľa, DrSc. (Honorary Chairman of the conference, FCHPT STU in Bratislava) and Assoc. Prof. Ing. Jozef Švorec, PhD. (conference chairman, FCHPT STU in Bratislava)
More about the Ján Gažo Award
One of the most prominent figures at ICCBIC is its founder, Ján Gažo. Professor Gažo began his research on coordination compounds in 1956 at the Slovak Technical High School, when he published two papers in a journal published by Springer, thereby becoming a pioneer in this field in Slovakia. Together with the House of Scientists of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, he organized a symposium on the structure and properties of coordination compounds from September 2–4, 1964, as a side event to the 8th ICCC in Vienna. This symposium was attended by approximately 180 scientists from 18 countries. In honor of Ján Gažo’s legacy, the ICCBIC organizing committee established the Ján Gažo Award, which is presented during the conference to prominent figures in the local chemical community.
Recipients of this award include:
prof. Gregor Ondrejovič (2017)
prof. Milan Melník (2019)
prof. Roman Boča (2022)
prof. Marian Koman (2024)
prof. Juraj Černák (2026)
