APP Newsletter 1 December 2008

Dear colleague,

It has been a year since the last newsletter, so this one is quite long.

Recent APP news in the Netherlands:

  • The 10th APP symposium on Wednesday 5 March 2008 was well organised by the Astronomical Institute Anton Pannekoek in Amsterdam and with 85 participants reasonably well attended. The meeting was concluded with champagne to celebrate the organisation of 10th APP symposium and the fact that field has grown to maturity.
  • The 3rd APP roadmap meeting was organised in Brussels, 29-30 September 2008. The meeting was very successful. On Monday the priorities in Europe were discussed (ASPERA, ASTRONET, ESO, ESA, CERN, ESFRI, EU (FP7)). On Tuesday the roadmap was discussed in the international context (DOE and NSF from USA, Japan, China, Canada, India, Russia) to come to a worldwide coordination of large APP projects. The ASPERA roadmap (description of projects and priorities) is published in a paper available on www.aspera-eu.org. In the coming months the PRC will produce an extended write-up of the status of the projects and the projections to the future.
  • The 11th APP symposium was planned to be organised by the University of Utrecht in the fall of 2008. Unfortunately the University management stopped the financing of the APP group in. The group has to stop their collaboration with IceCube and was not able to organise the APP symposium.
  • The 11th APP symposium will now be organised by the Leiden University on Friday 20 March 2009.
  • On September 1st Gerard van der Steenhoven started as Dean of the faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Twente. For this reason Gerard vacated his position as chair of the CAN. The other CAN members thank Gerard for his major contribution to the achievements of the CAN and to bring the APP field in the Netherlands to Maturity. This was officially mentioned during the farewell drinks at Nikhef on Wednesday August 28th 2008. Heino Falcke (RU) accepted the position as chair of the CAN starting September 1st 2008. The new deputy chair person is Ad M. van den Berg (KVI). New members to the CAN are: Els de Wolf, Maarten de Jong, Jo van den Brand.
  • On Friday 17 October 2008 the UvA organised an APP symposium to draw attention to the plans for a center of excellence at the UvA focussed on APP research. The symposium was a success with more that 150 participants.
  • On Tuesday 28 October ASPERA organised an event in Amsterdam dedicated to improve contacts between industry and R&D projects in APP. The 35 participants have initiated new contacts during the meeting and old contacts were reinforced. The meeting was a good starting point for future workshops to contact small and medium enterprises in Europe. Detailed information on the event can be found on http://industry-event.aspera-eu.org.
  • 2008 was again a very active and successful year in the search for new APP funding;
    • Heino Falcke received an ERC grant for research on Radio detectors with Auger.
    • On November 26 the Minister of OC&W decided that he will follow the advice of NWO and SenterNovem to fund 5 ESFRI research infrastructures with a total of M€ 63, of which KM3NeT will receive the requested M€ 8.8.
  • The next CAN meeting will be this week on 3 December. Please, contact the representative of your institute/university if you have input for this meeting.

Best regards,

Rob van der Meer
Secretary of the Committee for Astroparticle Physics in the Netherlands (CAN)
ASPERA liaison officer - NL

http://www.astrodeeltjesfysica.nl
http://www.astroparticlephysics.nl
http://www.particleastrophysics.nl

This page was updated 1 December 2008