The First International Conference on Growth Substances was held in Paris in 1937. This meeting was organized under the auspices of the League of Nations and the papers were published as a special volume, Etudes et recherches sur les phvtohormones (Paris. 1938). Professor P. Boysen-Jensen was the President at this meeting and Professor V. J. Koningsberger and Dr. G. S. Avery were amongst those attending.

The Second Growth Substance Conference held in Wisconsin in 1949 was almost entirely American, Professor H. Burström being the only representative from Europe to present a paper. The contributions, edited by Professor F. Skoog and published in 1951 under the title Plant Growth Substances, have undoubtedly proved of great value to all workers in the field.

In September 1953, an International Conference on Plant Growth Substances was held at the University of Lund, Sweden organized by Professor H. Burström. Although only an abstract of the proceedings of the Lund Conference (1953) was published, the great success of this meeting must be recorded.

The high level and great value of the papers and discussions led, two years later, to the idea of holding a similar Conference in England. This suggestion was well received, and, as a result, workers from seven countries met at Wve College from 17-22 July 1955. The proceedings of the Wye conference were published in The Chemistry and Mode of Action of Plant Growth Substances Butterworths Scientific Publications, London 1956.

Past IPGSA Meetings, Hosts, Presidents and Secretaries

IPGSA Research Awards

1973 (Tokyo):
Robert L. Wain, Wye College, University of London, Ashford, UK

1976 (Lausanne):
Kenneth V. Thimann, Crown College, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA

1979 (Madison):
Mikhail Kh. Chailakhyan, K.A. Timiryazev Institute of Plant Physiology, Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., Moscow, Russia

1982 (Aberystwyth):
Jake MacMillan, School of Chemistry, The University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
Bernard O. Phinney, Department of Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA

1985 (Heidelberg):
Saburo. Tamura, Department of Agricultural Chemistry, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Nobutaka Takahashi, Department of Agricultural Chemistry, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Shang Fa Yang, Department of Vegetable Crops, University of California, Davis, USA

1988 (Calgary):
Robert S. Bandurski, Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA

1991 (Amsterdam):
Jan A.D. Zeevaart, MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA
D.Stuart Letham, Research School of Biological Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
Roger Horgan, Department of Biological Sciences, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK

1995 (Minneapolis):
Jan E. Graebe, Albrecht-von-Haller Institute for Plant Physiology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Hans Kende, MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA
Marten Koornneef, Laboratory of Genetics, Agricultural University of Wageningen, Wageningen, The Netherlands

1998 (Tokyo):
Peter Hedden, IACR - Long Ashton Resaerch Station, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
Hiroh Shibaoka, Department of Biology, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan

2001 (Brno):
Russell L. Jones, Department of Plant Biology, University of California, Berkeley, USA
John V. Jacobsen, CSIRO Plant Industry, Canberra, Australia

2004 (Canberra):
Anthony B. Bleecker, Botany Department, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA.
Joseph R. Ecker, Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, San Diego, California, USA.
Yuji Kamiya, RIKEN Plant Science Center, Yokohama, Japan

2007 (Puerto Vallarta):
Joanne Chory, Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, San Diego, California, USA.
Mark Estelle, Department of Biology, Indiana University, Boomington, Indiana, USA
Takao Yokota, Department of Biosciences, Teikyo University, Utsunomiya, Japan

2010 (Tarragona):
Ottoline Leyser, The Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Makoto Matsuoka, Bioscience and Biotechnology Center, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
Tai-ping Sun, Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA

2013 (Shanghai):
Peter McCourt, Department of Cell and Systems Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
Erwin Grill, Center of Life and Food Sciences, Technische Universität München, Freising, Germany
Shinjiro Yamaguchi, Department of Biomolecular Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

2016 (Toronto):
Sean Cutler, Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, University of California, Riverside, USA
Joe Kieber, Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA
Hitoshi Sakakibara, Plant Productivity Systems Research Group, RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, Yokohama, Japan