Editorial – Horizon 2020, opportunities for research and commitment to society
In a not so remote past, scientists were a close-knit society, spending much of their time in isolated laboratories or academic institutions, sometimes referred to as ivory towers. Now however, on a par with globalization and the emergence of the information-based society, there is a growing commitment of scientists to share knowledge and opinions with society in general. And indeed it is a duty to explain how public funds are employed in the development of basic science and technology for the advancement of society…
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…
25th Anniversary Conference of the Academia Europaea
The Academia Europaea will celebrate its 25th anniversary during a conference to be held in Wroclaw on 17-19 September 2013.
The Academia Europaea is a non-governmental association acting as an academy and promoting learning, education and research since 1988. Its members are leading experts from natural sciences, mathematics, social sciences, economics and law…
INFN establishes a new centre in Trento
On 15 January 2013 the University of Trento opened the Trento Institute for Fundamental Physics and Application [TIFPA]. The TIFPA was created through the collaboration of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics [INFN], the University of Trento, Fondazione Bruno Kessler [FBK] and the Provincial Agency for Proton Therapy Trento [ATreP].
The new centre conducts research in basic physics, and in innovation and technology transfer, taking advantage of infrastructure, skills and human resources existing in the participating institutions. The Centre will benefit from…
Science: it’s a girl thing
On 21 June 2012, the European Commission launched its brand new EU–wide campaign “Women in Research and Innovation”. Under the slogan “Science: it’s a girl thing”, the first phase of the campaign aims at encouraging girls aged 13-18 to embrace a scientific school curriculum.
Women are still under-represented in research at a time when Europe needs more researchers to foster innovation and bolster its economy. The goal of the campaign “Science it’s a Girl Thing” is to attract young…
Italian Young Minds Sections meet Accastampato Journal
The interaction between the journal Accastampato and European Physical Society Young Minds [EPS YM] is an example of how networking activities promoted by the physical societies can be used to take a project from a local to a national scale.
Accastampato is a journal founded in 2010 by students of the Physics Department of La Sapienza University of Roma. Written by students for students, the journal aims to draw attention to the beauty of science, in a friendly and…
ACAT 2013
The 15h International Workshop on Advanced Computing and Analysis Techniques in Physics Research [ACAT 2013] will be held in Beijing, China, on 16-21 May 2013. The Institute of High Energy Physics [IHEP] will host the workshop.
This workshop is the latest of a series created in 1990. Its main purpose is to bring together researchers working in the field of computing. It has established bridges between physics and computer science research, facilitating the advances in the understanding of the Universe at its smallest and largest scales…
EPS conference in Munich attracts record submissions
The European Physical Society [EPS] through its Quantum Electronics and Optics Division [QEOD] organizes one of the world’s largest conferences in pure and applied optical physics, which has been held every 2 years in Munich, Germany, since 2001.
The Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics and the European Quantum Electronics Conference [CLEO Europe-EQEC] is one of EPS’s flagship congress events, attracting the world’s pre-eminent scientists in optics and photonics…
ITER gets off the ground
The 20,500-square-metre ITER Headquarters building was inaugurated on 17 January 2013. The ITER site is located in Cadarache, France, that already hosts France’s nuclear research centre [CEA].
Guenther H. Oettinger, EU Commissioner for Energy, and Geneviève Fioraso, French Minister of Higher Education and Research, together with ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima unveiled the commemorative plaque at the entrance of the building. They also visited the ITER construction site where the Tokamak Complex construction will begin…
ICSSUR 2013
The 13th International Conference on Squeezed States and Uncertainty Relations [ICSSUR 2013] will take place from 24 to 28 June 2013 in Nuremberg, Germany.
The conference will be the 13th in a series that has been organized nearly every two years since 1991 and the first one organized in Germany. ICSSUR covers a range of topics from quantum optics to quantum atom optics and quantum information. The Nobel laureates Roy J. Glauber and David J. Wineland will give plenary talks as well as…
Featured in EPN
Most recent highlights from EPN:
Heavy ice, by L.J.F.(Jo) HermansWater is a vital substance for life on planet Earth. This is obvious for liquid water with its crucial role for any species living on the globe. But also solid water plays a more important role than one might expect.
Surprises in cycling aerodynamics, by Bert Blocken, Thijs Defraeye, Erwin Koninckx, Jan Carmeliet and Peter Hespel…
Updating the European Strategy for Particle Physics
On 21-26 January 2013 the European Strategy Group met in Erice, Italy to draft an update of the medium and long-term European Strategy for Particle Physics to be submitted shortly for approval by the CERN Council. The Erice “retreat” followed the Open Symposium of Krakow, Poland, in September 2012.
This timely strategy document comes soon after the discovery of the long awaited Higgs-like boson at the LHC and coincides with the LHC shutdown until the end of 2014…
