International interest in the use of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) to manage the risk of COVID-19 transmission is large and growing rapidly with each day of this global pandemic. Because of this CIE has published a Position Statement (PS) following on from the two CIE publications related to UV-C applications that were recently made freely available. Combined these have been accessed over 10000 times in the past two months!

On its web site VNISI has started the registration of participants for the International Scientific and Technical Greenhouses Lighting Conference, which is going to take place on 9-10 September 2019 in Moscow.

On 17 October 2018 Anna Gennadiyevna Shakhparunyantz, General Director of Russian Lighting Research Institute named after S.I. Vavilov, was elected Vice-president of the Board of directors of International Commission on Illumination (CIE). 23 Representatives of National Committees participated in the vote. The overwhelming majority supported A.G. Shakhparunyantz’s candidacy, with only 1 vote against and 1 abstention.

This year the editorial office of the Light and Engineering journal held a contest to assign the noble titles of The Author of the Year, The Correspondent of the Year and The Reviewer of the Year for 2017. The laureates were announced and awarded in the solemn atmosphere of the plenary session in the framework of the "Light in a museum" conference being held in The State Hermitage Museum in April of 2018.