Minutes of the Section Meeting and Section Committee meeting of the Physics and Engineering Sciences Section of Academia Europaea#

Bergen, 11 September 2012

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Participants: Nihat Berker, Laszlo Csernai (outgoing Chair), Tamás Csörgö, Muhsin N. Harakeh (incoming Chair), Luigi Lugiato, André Mischke, Dieter Roehrich, Jan Vaagen

A workshop organised by the Physics and Engineering Sciences (P&E) Section on “Heavy Ions in Science and Health” was held on Monday, 10 September 2012, the day preceding the Section Committee meeting, which took place on Tuesday morning. Around 40 participants attended the workshop. The presented talks can be found on the website of the AE P&E Section of University of Bergen: http://academiaeuropaea.ift.uib.no/project/Workshop-Announcement.html

The P&E Section Committee meeting on Tuesday morning (9:00-10:00) started with a presentation by Jan Vaagen, wherein he emphasised the need for the P&E Section to take steps towards working on topics of strong societal relevance, such as Energy, Environment and Health. He pointed to the importance of building bridges between European Physical Society (EPS), AE P&E Section and EASAC. EASAC (the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council) comprises representatives of the national science academies of the EU Member States. Its mission is to provide advice to European policy-makers. The main themes that EASAC is working on presently are: Energy, Biosciences and Environment. Its president, Sir Brian Heap, could be interested in joining efforts with P&E Section on working on these themes.

André Mischke, who presently presides over the Young Academy, presented the progress made with the foundation of the Young Academy and the basis upon which members have been recruited. In first instance, members were recruited from scientists who won the ERC (European Research Council) Starting Grant (StG) in one of the three disciplinary domains covered by ERC, i.e. Social sciences and Humanities, Life sciences and Physical and Engineering Sciences. The goal is finally to elect also members from the different member countries who have won national grants that reflect excellent scholarship similar to the ERC StG.

The main point of the agenda of the Section Business meeting (10:15-11:15) was the confirmation of the election of Muhsin Harakeh to chair the P&E Section and Jan S. Vaagen as a new member of the Section Committee.(See http://academiaeuropaea.ift.uib.no/members.htm).

These changes that were confirmed by the P&E Section Committee were later approved by the AE Council in their meeting on Tuesday afternoon. During the Business Meeting outgoing Chair, Laszlo Csernai, recounted the names of nominees for membership of the AE P&E Section. The names of those elected to membership of the Academy were mentioned. The Chair mentioned also that some nominations were deferred to next year because they were received after the Section Committee meeting on 25 May 2012 in which the nominations for 2012 were considered. In short, from the 49 nominated candidates the Council approved the election of 37 new members, who will be invited to accept membership, which will officially start when the new members accept it. http://academiaeuropaea.ift.uib.no/Council_2012_Doc_411_New_members_Physics-Public.pdf

During the Section meeting, Tamás Csörgö presented the game he has developed to play poker with Standard Model Cards including quarks, leptons, bosons including colour and charge. A demonstration was given. It seems to be a nice game to get youngsters as well as adults familiar with the Standard Model and its constituents.

The meeting ended at 11:15 in time for the outgoing Chair and the incoming Chair to attend the AE Council meeting.

The Annual General Conference started on the Tuesday afternoon.

Important information for P&E Section members#

The next AE Annual General Conference (AGC) will be held in Wrocław, Poland in the period 17-19 September 2013. It will be a very special event since it will celebrate the 25th anniversary of Academia Europaea. The Section meeting will be held on 15-16 September preceding the AGC.

Nominations for 2013 are now possible till 31 May 2013. Members need to download, fill in and save the new pdf form, which can be submitted electronically thereafter. Please see instruction on AE website. The Section Committee will meet early June to consider the new nominations.

The B & C Sections can nominate colleagues who have performed outstanding research for the 2014 Erasmus Medal. The Chairs of the B & C Sections are Members of the 2014 ERASMUS MEDALLIST SEARCH COMMITTEE with the right to vote. Any suggestions of candidates are most welcome.

The incoming Chair of the P&E Section is presently working to move the Section website to the University of Groningen. This will hopefully happen in the very near future so that news from the Section Committee will appear at this new internet site.

Muhsin N. Harakeh
Chair
October 8, 2012