The EPS Executive Committee Meeting, February 2013
The European Physical Society’s Executive Committee [EPS ExCom] met on 1-2 February 2013 in the beautiful venue of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts in Barcelona, Spain. The ExCom was kindly and warmly welcomed by the president of the Academy, Ramon Pascual de Sans, EPS individual member since 1970!
Important points in the agenda of the meeting were, in particular, the EPS position paper on Horizon 2020 (see Editorial in this issue), the report commissioned by EPS to CEBR on the importance of physics to the economies of Europe, new EPS prizes and distinctions, the forthcoming kick-off meeting of the EPS Committee on European Integration [CEI] in Serbia, and how to achieve an effective EPS representation in Brussels.
Invited for presentations and discussions during the meeting were Marta Sans-Solé, president of the European Mathematical Society [EMS], Gerardo Delgado-Barrio, member of the Executive Committee of the Spanish Royal Physics Society [RSEF], and Jef Ongena, member of the EPS Energy Group.
The meeting ended with a visit to the ALBA laboratory, a third generation synchrotron light facility located in Cerdanyola del Vallès near Barcelona. Constructed by the CELLS consortium, jointly funded by the Catalan and Spanish governments, ALBA is operative since May 2012. The ExCom could benefit of a special guided tour with Caterina Biscari, ALBA director and member of the EPS ExCom, and Francis Pérez, head of the ALBA Accelerators Division.
The next ExCom meeting will be on 4 April 2013 in Strasbourg, France, on the eve of the EPS Council meeting 2013 scheduled for 5 and 6 April.
The Executive Summary of the Barcelona meeting is to be found in the EPS website (available only for EPS members).
