List of International Congresses of Mathematicians Plenary and Invited Speakers


This is a list of International Congresses of Mathematicians Plenary and Invited Speakers. Being invited to talk at an ICM has been called "the equivalent, in this community, of an induction to a hall of fame." The current list of Plenary and Invited Speakers presented here is based on the ICM's post-WW II terminology, in which the one-hour speakers in the morning sessions are called "Plenary Speakers" and the other speakers whose talks are included in the ICM published proceedings are called "Invited Speakers". In the pre-WW II congresses the Plenary Speakers were called "Invited Speakers".

Speakers by year of congress

[|1897], Zürich

During the 1900 Congress in Paris, France, David Hilbert announced his famous list of Hilbert's problems.
In 1904, in Heidelberg, the 69 invited speakers included Borel, Hadamard, Hilbert, Klein, Levi-Civita, Minkowski, Mittag-Leffler, and Sommerfeld.
The 1908 ICM in Rome had 121 invited speakers included Bernstein, Borel, Brückner, Brouwer, Darboux, Dickson, Fubini, Hadamard, Levi-Civita, Lorenz, Macfarlane, Mittag-Leffler, E.H. Moore, M. Noether, Picard, Poincaré, F. Rietz, Severi, Sommerfeld, and Zermelo. Robert Genese spoke again, this time on "The Method of Reciprocal Polars Applied to Forces in Space".
The 1912 ICM in Cambridge had 103 invited speakers, among them Bateman, Bernstein, Borel, Brouwer, Fehr, Fields, Grossman, Hadamard, Hardy, von Koch, Landau, Littlewood, Love, Macfarlane, E.H. Moore, Morley, Peano, Runge, Thomon, Volterra, Whitehead, and Zermelo.
The 1920 congress in Strasbourg had only 56 invited speakers, among them Cartan, Dickson, Grossman, Hadamard, Jordan, Lefschetz, Takagi, de la Vallée Poussin, Volterra, and Wiener.
The 1924 ICM in Toronto had 180 invited speakers, including Bell, Besicovitch, Cartan, Coats, Coker, Dickson, Eddington, Fehr, Fisher, Fréchet, Fubini, Hedrick, Hille, Morley, Ore, Peano, Plancherel, Ricci-Curbastro, H. Rietz, Severi, Sierpiński, Uspensky, and Zaremba.
The 1928 Bologna ICM had 265 invited speakers, including Banach, Bernstein, G.D. Birkhoff, Bompiana, Borel, Cartan, Čech, Courant, Fano, Fields, Fisher, Fréchet, Fubini, Haar, Hadamard, Hilbert, Julia, Lévy, Levi-Civita, Menger, Milne-Thomson, Mordell, Nevanlinna, Neyman, Nikodym, E. Noether, Ore, Plancherel, Pólya, Rademacher, Reidemeister, F. Rietz, Segre, Severi, Sierpiński, Steinhaus, Tarski, Veblen, Vitali, Volterra, Weyl, Whittaker, Zariski, and Zygmund.
The 1932 ICM in Zürich had 258 invited speakers, including Ahlfors, Alexandroff, Bernays, Bernstein, Bieberbach, Borsuk, Carathéodory, both Cartans, Čech, Cesari, de Rham, Delsarte, Fehr, Fraenkel, Hadamard, Hardy, Hasse, Hille, Hopf, Hurewicz, Julia, Krull, Kuratowski, Lévy, Littlewood, Menger, Milne-Thomson, Mordell, Morse, Nevanlinna, E. Noether, Ore, Pauli, Pontryagin, F. Rietz, Seifert, Severi, Sierpiński, Ulam, Volterra, Whitehead, Wiener, Zaremba, and Zygmund.
There were 191 invited speakers at the 1936 congress in Oslo, among them Ahlfors, Banach, Bateman, both Birkhoffs, Borel, Borsuk, Cartan, Cartwright, Courant, Cramér, Eilenberg, Erdős, Feller, Fréchet, Gelfond, Hesse, Hecke, Hurewicz, Lemaître, McShane, Menger, Mordell, Morley, Morse, both Newmans, Ore, Pólya, Rado, M. Riesz, Selberg, Siegel, Sierpinski, Skolem, Stone, Taussky, Veblen, Whitehead, and Wiener.
At the 1954 Congress of Mathematicians in Amsterdam, Richard Brauer announced his program for the classification of finite simple groups.
in his plenary lecture at the 1958 Congress outlined his programme "to create arithmetic geometry via a reformulation of algebraic geometry, seeking maximal generality."
At the 1962 Congress in Stockholm Kiyosi Itô lectured on how to combine differential geometry and stochastic analysis, and this led to major advances in the 60s and 70s.
There were thirty-one Invited Addresses at the 1966 congress.
The 2006 ICM in Madrid attracted several thousand mathematicians.
This list inventories the mathematicians who were the most invited to speak to an ICM.
RankName#YearsNationality
1Jacques Hadamard91897, 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, 1920, 1928, 1932, 1950France
2Émile Borel71897, 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, 1928, 1936France
2Jules Drach71900, 1912, 1920, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1936France
4Elie Cartan61900, 1920, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1936France
4Gino Loria61897, 1904, 1908, 1912, 1928, 1932Italy
4Vito Volterra61900, 1904, 1908, 1912, 1920, 1928Italy
7Henri Fehr51904, 1908, 1912, 1924, 1932Switzerland
7Rudolf Fueter51920, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1936Switzerland
7Yuri Manin51966, 1970, 1978, 1986, 1990Russia Germany
7Mihailo Petrović51908, 1912, 1924, 1928, 1932Serbia
7Cyparissos Stephanos51897, 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912Greece
7Carl Størmer51908, 1920, 1924, 1932, 1936Norway
7Gheorghe Țițeica51908, 1912, 1924, 1932, 1936Romania

The most invited speakers after 1950

This list inventories the mathematicians who were the most invited to speak to an ICM after 1950.
RankName#YearsNationality
1Yuri Manin51966, 1970, 1978, 1986, 1990Russia Germany
2Vladimir Arnold41958, 1966, 1974, 1983Russia
2Michael Atiyah41962, 1966, 1970, 1978United Kingdom
2Simon Donaldson41983, 1986, 1998, 2018UK
2Mikhail Gromov41970, 1978, 1983, 1986Russia France
2Goro Shimura41958, 1966, 1970, 1978Japan
2Yakov Sinai41962, 1970, 1978, 1990Russia USA
8Paul Erdős3 1950, 1954, 1983Hungary
8Beniamino Segre3 1950, 1954, 1958Italy
10Aldo Andreotti31950, 1962, 1970Italy
10James Arthur31983, 1998, 2014Canada
10László Babai31990, 1994, 2018Hungary
10Jean Bourgain31983, 1986, 1994Belgium
10Alberto Calderón31950, 1966, 1978Argentina
10Lennart Carleson31962, 1966, 1990Sweden
10Shiing-Shen Chern31950, 1958, 1970China USA
10Alain Connes31974, 1978, 1986France
10John Conway31970, 1978, 1994UK
10Roland Dobrushin31974, 1978, 1990Russia
10Eugene Dynkin31962, 1970, 1974USSR USA
10Yakov Eliashberg31986, 1998, 2006USA
10Hillel Furstenberg31970, 1990, 2010Israel
10Jürg Fröhlich31978, 1986, 1994Switzerland
10Frederick Gehring31966, 1974, 1986USA
10Israel Gelfand31954, 1962, 1970Russia
10Étienne Ghys31990, 2006, 2014France
10Hans Grauert31958, 1962, 1966Germany
10Henryk Iwaniec31978, 1986, 2006Poland USA
10Kazuya Kato31990, 2002, 2006Japan
10Carlos Kenig31986, 2002, 2010Argentina USA
10Harry Kesten31970, 1983, 2002USA
10Olga Ladyzhenskaya31966, 1983, 1994Russia
10Peter Lax31966, 1970, 1983USA
10Jacques-Louis Lions31958, 1970, 1974France
10Pierre-Louis Lions31983, 1990, 1994France
10George Lusztig31974, 1983, 1990Romania USA
10Yves Meyer31970, 1983, 1990France
10John Milnor31958, 1962, 2014USA
10Jürgen Moser31962, 1978, 1998Germany USA
10David Mumford31962, 1970, 2002USA
10Sergei Novikov31966, 1970, 1978Russia
10Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro31966, 1978, 2002Russia Israel
10Wolfgang M. Schmidt31970, 1974, 1983Austria
10Richard Schoen31983, 1986, 2010USA
10Saharon Shelah31974, 1983, 1986Israel
10Yum-Tong Siu31978, 1983, 2002China
10Stephen Smale31962, 1966, 1986USA
10Daniel Spielman32002, 2010, 2014USA
10Elias M. Stein31962, 1970, 1986USA
10Dennis Sullivan31970, 1986, 1974USA
10Andrei Suslin31978, 1986, 1994Russia
10Clifford Taubes31986, 1994, 1998USA
10René Thom31958, 1970, 1983France
10John G. Thompson31962, 1966, 1970USA
10Jacques Tits31962, 1970, 1974Belgium France
10S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan31978, 1994, 2010USA
10Jean-Loup Waldspurger31983, 1994, 2014France
10André Weil31950, 1954, 1978France