Left: US President Donald Trump speaks at a press conference at the White House on Jan. 20, 2026, after a Supreme Court ruling on his “reciprocal” tariffs. (Reuters/Yonhap) Right: The Fields Medal. (Getty Images Bank)
The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM), the world’s largest academic event of its kind, is held every four years. This gathering awards the Fields Medal, known as the “Nobel of mathematics,” and gained recognition in Korea in 2022, when Princeton University professor Jun E. Huh in 2022 became the first person of Korean descent to receive the honor. This year’s event is scheduled for July in Philadelphia.But a growing number of mathematicians worldwide say the recent situation in the US is cause for a boycott of the event. The monthly journal Scientific American on Thursday said a petition to move the event outside the US has received over 1,700 signatures from mathematicians. According to the petition released as of Monday afternoon, 1,762 people have signed it, notably many speakers who attended previous ICMs. They urged the International Mathematical Union (IMU), the organizer of the congress, to reconsider holding the 2026 ICM in the US.
The preamble to the petition to reconsider holding this year’s ICM in the US.
