The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (Iupac) will be based between Malaga, Spain and Rome, Italy, from summer 2026 following a two-year-long search for a new home.

The organisation, which acts as chemistry’s governing body and custodian of the periodic table, announced in June 2024 it was planning to leave its current home at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, where it has been based since 1997.

Following eight formal bids from countries in Asia, Europe and the Americas to host the organisation, the body was unable to decide between the bids from the National Research Council (CNR) of Italy, based in Rome, and the University and City of Malaga. Iupac’s council instead agreed to a joint hosting arrangement in July, creating a new ‘European permanent secretariat’, with negotiations between the cities concluding in December 2025.

Zoltan Mester, Iupac’s secretary general, praised the decision as ‘a major step in the modernisation of Iupac’s operation’ that would ‘support its global science mandate for the decades to come’. Both Rome and Malaga have large technology hubs and established government collaborations, Mester explained, as well as nearby access to major international airports. The offices in Malaga would also give Iupac ‘a unique tie-in opportunity for the union to chemists from the Spanish-speaking world’, Mester added.

The decision marks a return to Europe for the organisation, which has previously been based in Paris, Zurich, Basel and Oxford. Iupac has already begun the process of moving from the US to Europe, and will complete the transfer to its new offices in Spain and Italy in the coming months.