Council 2013: Results and new horizons
The annual meeting of the EPS Council was hosted by the University of Strasbourg in the premises of the Institut de Science et d’Ingénierie Supramoléculaires, attended by around 80 participants: the members of the EPS Executive Committee, the representatives of EPS Individual Members, Member Societies and Associate Institutions, and the chairs of EPS Divisions and Groups.
One of the main items was the official launch of the EPS study on “The importance of physics to the economies of Europe”, which was commissioned from Cebr, an independent company specialised in economic and business analaysis. The study clearly highlights the significant impact of physics-based activities in Europe and their important contribution to the GDP, outperforming sectors like finance and retail. The exhaustive study as well as an executive summary can be downloaded from the EPS website.
During the two years of her mandate, outgoing president Luisa Cifarelli has translated the “EPS Strategy Plan 2010+” into concrete actions. Major improvements to EPS communication, operation and reactivity have contributed to raise EPS’ visibility and influence, and reinforced its double role as a federation of national member societies and its activities as a learned society.
Building a strong European society is one of the major concerns of the EPS in order to legitimately be the voice of all European physicists. A particular effort is being made on integration, and smaller non-member societies have been invited for presentations to Council. The Cyprus Physicists Society will join EPS (see article in this issue). The complex situation of the physicists in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been put forward by representatives from both regional physical societies. Discussion about a project of a union of these is on-going and may lead to a future EPS adhesion. A further tool in the described efforts will be the new EPS Committee for European Integration [CEI].
The prize ceremony for the first edition of the EPS Edison Volta prize, honouring recipients Rolf Dieter Heuer, Sergio Bertolucci, and Stephen Myers, with their presentations on the successful operation of the CERN Large Hadron Collider [LHC] and the first evidence for a Higgs boson, was the scientific highlight of this meeting (see article in this issue).
A major session of the 2013 Council was devoted to a round table discussion on Open Access evolutions and concerns, introduced and chaired by Sir John Enderby (see article in this issue). Participants of various learned societies and publishers contributed to this discussion.
The Council assembly has also approved the accounts 2012 and the budget 2013; it has been informed about past and on-going work of the Executive Committee, in particular regarding the revision of its Action Committees.
Luisa Cifarelli was warmly thanked for her hard work and dedication by Council. John Dudley took up office as EPS President during the Saturday session of Council.
