The Swiss Society for Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry was founded in 1975. The foundation members elected Prof. H. R. Oswald, Institute for Inorganic Chemistry, University of Zürich as president for the period of 1975-1978.

From 1979 to 2000, Dr. E. Marti, who was a Scientific Expert of Ciba-Geigy AG Basel over many years, was the president of STK. He resigned at the PhandTA 5 . Mrs. Danielle Giron, the vicepresident of the society at this time, who is working at Novartis Pharma AG in Basel, took over his position.

Members are coming from all parts of Switzerland and also from different countries of Europe. Members are active in many different branches of industry in research, development and quality control. The chemical as well as polymer industry and particularly the pharmaceutical industry is well represented. Another group of members are coming from universities, research and governmental institutes. The activities of the members of our society are covering the areas of substances, formulations and materials related to organic and inorganic chemistry, biochemistry, polymer chemistry, pharmacy, plant protection, food sience.

The society is the vehicle for the exchange of scientific information, scientific and development results as well as a platform for the presentation and elucidation of theories, new intrumentation and new methods. The STK promotes in all these areas applied physical chemistry with the great variety of subfields such as chemical thermodynamics, kinetics and chemical reaction theories, catalysis, spectroscopy, solid and liquid state characterization.

STK and eurostar-science cooperate in a mutual agreement and with a collaboration which enables a high degree of exchange of scientific information in basic research as well as in the cooperation with universities, industry and instrument manufacturers. As an practical example, the knowledge of inorganic solid-state chemistry and solid-state characterization has been transferred with the STK as vehicle to the organic chemistry, not only within the scientific societies, but also as a global network to the chemical, pharmaceutical and agrochemical companies. Such a know-how transfer has been a process over a period of over 30 years. Further activities have been organized such as the joint conference of GEFTA, eurostar-science and STK on Thermal Analysis in Material Sciences and its Application to the Car and Aircraft Industry that took place in September 2001 at the BMW Research and Engineer Center in Munich, Germany.

The general assembly of the STK takes place once a year, generally during the annual meeting.