About
CompChem Observer is a community-maintained calendar of conferences, workshops and schools in computational and theoretical chemistry: electronic structure, molecular simulation, machine learning for chemistry and materials, computational materials science and computational drug design.
How it works
Every event is a YAML file in a public Git repository, validated automatically. The site is built to static files; a small Cloudflare Worker serves the few things a static file cannot, such as calendars for a filter you choose. Anyone canadd or correct an event.
Privacy
No analytics, no trackers, no third-party scripts and no external fonts. Browsing sets no cookies and records nothing about your visit.
One exception, only if you use it: Save as my default on the event list, orI’m interested on an event page, sets a cookie named visitorholding a random id. With that id the site stores the filter you saved, or which events you marked, and when. That is all; there is no account, name or email. Pages show only how many people are interested, never who. The cookie is how this browser finds its filter again, and the filter also feeds your personal calendar link. Forget saved filterdeletes the stored filter and turns that calendar link off; pressingInterested ✓ again removes your mark.
Feeds and exports
- Events calendar — subscribe in any calendar app.
- Deadlines calendar — every open deadline.
- Any filter on the event list — the “Subscribe to this filtered view” link under the list is a calendar of just those events that stays current.
- Atom feed — newly added events.
- JSON — the full dataset.
Curation policy
This page is published on the site at /about/#curation-policy. It explains what we list and what we don’t. Keep it plain and factual.
What we list
Events whose main subject is computational or theoretical chemistry, including electronic structure, molecular and materials simulation, ML for chemistry and materials, cheminformatics and computational drug design. Accepted formats are conferences, workshops, schools, symposia, hackathons and webinar series.
Broader meetings (for example a general chemistry congress) are listed only if they have a clearly identified computational or theoretical programme, and the listing should point to that programme where possible.
Reasons we decline or remove a listing
No single item is decisive; use judgement and record the reasons.
- The organiser is on
data/blocklist.yaml(see below). - Very broad, unrelated scope (“all of science and engineering”) with computational chemistry as one tag among dozens.
- No identifiable committee, or a committee with no verifiable affiliations.
- Unsolicited invitation-style promotion, guaranteed acceptance of all abstracts, or pressure to pay quickly.
- Journal or proceedings claims that cannot be verified, or misuse of indexing names.
- The event page is missing, unreachable, or contradicts the listing.
Positions
We list PhD, postdoc and permanent academic positions (research scientist, lecturer, faculty) in computational or theoretical chemistry. We do not list industry jobs, recruitment agencies or adverts that hide the employer. Each listing links the institution’s advert when one exists, otherwise the announcement it was found in. A position without a deadline is marked “may already be filled” after 45 days and moves to the archive after 90.
Blocklist
Event pages show how many visitors marked an event as interesting. That count is a signal of interest, not a rating or an endorsement: it never orders, filters or hides listings, and inclusion decisions never depend on it.
data/blocklist.yaml lists organiser domains that are not listed. Each entry has the domain, the date added, and at least one public evidence link (for example a recognised checklist, a published report, or documented complaints). We describe conduct and evidence, not motives. Anyone can request a review by opening an issue.
Corrections and reports
- Every event page has a “Suggest a correction” link (public GitHub issue) and a “Report this event” link (private form).
- Reports are read by maintainers only. We do not publish reporter identities or report contents.
- A single report does not remove an event.
- Organisers can ask for corrections to their own listing at any time.
Copyright and text reuse
Descriptions are written in our own words. We link to official pages instead of copying their text, logos or images.
Corrections
Every event page has a correction link and a report link. See thecuration policy above for how reports are handled, or emailcontacts@compchem.observer.