IPSEC VI - Informal meeting of Physical Societies 10 September 2007, Szczecin

Reinhard Kulessa, as President of the Polish Physical Society, welcomed everyone to Szczecin and passed the chair to Jaroslav Nadrchal, Chair of the EPS East West Task Force (EWTF). Jaroslav Nadrchal explained that there were three themes for the meeting:
1) EWTF and scholarships - information from the EPS Secretary General, David Lee;
2) the access to scientific journals limited by monopolistic publishers' rising prices - Henryk Szymczak; 3) the European Research Council - first experiences and their appeal - Jerzy Langer.
Fritz Wagner requested a fourth item:
4) Miscellaneous So that he could update the meeting on a few EPS activities.

1. David Lee explained that when EPS had been founded in 1968 one of its main aims was East - West relations, bringing physicists together from across Europe. Since then Europe has changed a lot and so has EPS. Europe and European bodies are unwieldy organisations and take a long time to change. EPS has had two similar funds - one for East-West relations and one for people to attend conferences. It has been decided to pool the funds, this gives a total of 70k€, but if good projects are proposed the Executive Committee and Council could increase the funds. At its meeting with the Ukrainian Physical Society in Kiev last year, the Executive Committee found there were activities it wished to support but there was no framework for doing so. The funds are now in the hands of a new grants committee comprised of Jaroslav Nadrchal as Chair, Izabela Sosnowska (physics mobility scheme) Olaf Scholtan (conferences committee), Maciek Kolwas (representing the Executive Committee), John Beeby (Treasurer) and David Lee, bringing all the relevant EPS activities together. So far not much has changed but a few things have been added such as EPS invited speaker grant for speakers from new accession states, females, etc. Ideas should be brought to the Grants Committee. Grant schemes will be set for a period of two years. The Grants Committee meets shortly in London and will decide, amongst other things, what to do for the Ukraine.
In response to Szymon Bauch, David Lee explained that EWTF is no longer a grant awarding body, but advises the Grants Committee and the Executive Committee. Jaroslav Nadrchal indicated that it was hard to imagine how EWTF would now work since all responsibility had been passed to the Grants Committee. Fritz Wagner was very much in favour of bringing things together, as there had been a lot of changes with many of the Eastern countries now being members of the EU. We need to think of new challenges. Henryk Szymczak indicated that most of the applicants have been from the Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and the Balkan states. David Lee indicated the EPS has a total income of 800k€, of which 300k€ is spent on administration leaving 500k€ for projects. However, the European Commission has much more money available in different funds, although it is more difficult to get than EPS money. EPS must place its efforts where it can make a difference.

2. Henryk Szymczak spoke in favour of open access, which he defined as a system that does not change readers or their institutions. He raised a number of points:
- The system would favour Eastern countries, because the West would pay most as they publish more.
- Increases in journal subscription rates are well above inflation.
- The aim is to bring a greater benefit to society.
- Physicists are at the forefront of open access, with 90% of articles on particle physics and astronomy are available on open access.
- The European Commission study on the economics and technical revolution of publishing stressed the importance of dissemination.
- The ERC Scientific Council believes that all articles should be available on open access 6-12 months after publication.
- EPS is concerned about a large transfer of European money to the US in author fees if journals were to go open access.
- The New Journal of Physics (NJP) has been a great success in the open access field, with an impact factor of 4.5; we should support it.
- IOP believes it is not up to the European Commission to determine publishing policies.
- The American Institute of Physics (AIP) believes that one cannot insist on open access after the expensive peer review process.
Henryk Szymczak believes that what we want are the following:
- new open access journals;
- conversion of existing subscription journals to open access;
- a means to force grant holders to make their papers available open access;
- reduced VAT for publishing;
Oleksandr Slobodyanyuk also drew attention to the database of patents. These should be available open access. The cost of patent application is much higher than that of peer review.
Jerzy Langer pointed out that there was no simple solution for all problems; Medics don't care about the issue as there is a lot of money behind their research. EPS should talk to APS and come up with a solution for physics. Physicists really started open access, along with the internet. Should we be asking for a fee to refereeing rather than doing it for free? Most research is funded from public sources, but we have to be wary of actions that would be counter to the free market. However money is available for dissemination.
Peter Melville urged caution. Open access is an expensive process and also could prevent physicists in poorer countries being able to publish their work. Particle physics is a special case, being done from a few big centres, mainly CERN. We should not apply this to the rest of physics.
Fritz Wagner stressed the need for publishing only what had been peer reviewed and the need for archives, that are owned by the publishers. There is a problem with European publishing in APS and AIP journals in that the copyright is held in the US. We need to face up to the asymmetry with the US. EPS has to be careful not to go too far; member societies have journals. Commercial and learned society publishers need to sort out how to work together. EPS has been proactive on this in setting up a forum a year ago. A hybrid or transitional model, such as we face, is complex; publishers can charge twice (as with PRL) and good institutions are penalized through paying both journal subscriptions and publishing fees. EPS is very much aware of the problems and the need to respect economic issues and not to act straight away. An important issue is increasing the importance of Europhysics Letters (EPL).
David Lee commented on the importance of consortium agreements (such as used by IOP publishing) to make journals widely available throughout a country. We should try to promote the most cost effective solutions to government. Jerzy Langer commented that the governments will not provide any solution nor would they propose different rules for different disciplines; we need to talk to other physicists.
Hans-Rainer Trebin noted that in Germany additional funds are available for publishing, and that added value is important. He suggested that a referee returning comments in good time could get a voucher for publishing (open access) rather than payment.

3. Jerzy Langer's presentation on ERA and beyond - the need for appeal and action.
Financing has changed dramatically in recent years, with physicists in the avant grade of those making changes. However, almost half a million young and talented Europeans leave Europe each year mainly for the US. FP7 gives a 40% increase in the budget increasing year on year with a 7-year perspective and the ERC and ITER as its new components. There is also a chance for a new look at higher education through the Bologna process, establishment of the EIT and a new regional policy based upon the revised (more targeted) Lisbon strategy. 12 countries have joined the EU recently and it means joining the common market of talents. Indeed Europe gains by this process as the level of education in sciences is relatively high in most new Member States. Very encouraging is debate stirred by the Aho report aimed at a substantial increase in the funding for R&D, education and innovation. We should use up to 20% of a common pot money (the EU budget) for stimulating development of these targets. An important first stage was to persuade politicians and societies about the urgent need to create the ERC as the way to finance top individual frontier research projects from the EU budget. Because of bad experience in the past some of the greatest opposition came from the Royal Society in the UK, but at the end of the debate, when it became clear that the ERC be based upon the excellence criterion only and that leading scientists will be decision makers, the UK became one of the leading proponents. General principles of the ERC include excellence, competition, transparency, adequate budget. The aim is to create top science. Money is given to individuals (although this should be challenged) and is in the form of grants not contracts. Applications exceeded by many times the amount of money available. There will be more money next year, but it is feared that the low success rate (less than 3% in the first round) may deter people from applying. 40% went to category 1, maths, physics, chemistry, engineering science; 45% to category 2, life sciences; and 15% to category 3, social sciences and humanities. Also the rate of success among the proposals coming from new Member States is expected to be low.
The ERA green paper proposes an adequate flow of competent researchers, a world-class research infrastructure, excellent research institutes, effective knowledge sharing, well co-ordinated research objectives and priorities and an effective opening of the ERA to the world. Barriers to co-ordination include the very different system in different countries. Member states should abandon "just retour", agree on bench marking, harmonise procedures and accept in-kind money provision.
Jerzy Langer described the establishment of EIT+ strategy in Wrocław, using EU money from structural funds (the highest share in Polish metropolises devoted for knowledge building initiatives and innovative business). It is based on the principles of the EU EIT initiative and Wrocław's long-standing identity (as Breslau) as an academic town. New Europe needs modernised universities and new higher academic structures open to the most talented people from the whole of Europe. A useful argument is that in Poland there are 130k soldiers and 2 million students and this is more then a mere voting power. In the ranking of trust in professions in Poland scientists come highest and politicians lowest. However, the number of graduates in the physical sciences is decreasing virtually everywhere, despite the fact that e.g. in Poland physics graduates are the best paid after completing graduation, but for work outside physics in the financial sector. According to the recently published OECD data, in new Member States, especially in Poland, ranked first in these statistics; the number of science and engineering students (both undergraduates and PhD) started to increase massively (fourfold increase after 1989).
Fritz Wagner very much appreciated the presentation and commented that this was very much the same way that EPS saw the situation and was in line with the EPS comments on the ERA Green Paper. EPS is also a strong supporter of the Bologna process and wanted to engage Europe in a study of this. David Lee asked how we could increase the number of people studying physics. We have put a lot of effort into public engagement, but this hasn.t achieved much. Peter Melville referred to a marketing approach in its simplest terms the four P's - product, price, promotion and packaging. We have spent a lot of effort on promotion, but may be we should look more closely at the product, what we offer students of physics, and how we may repackage physics better. Jerzy Langer commented that physicists do things because they believe they need to be done rather than make more money. Maybe this is something we should stress.
Jerzy Langer asked for support for the attached document appealing to EPS to issue a dedicated statement urging both the European and Member states of the need of longer support of basic research and education in the natural sciences. This was agreed. Fritz Wagner and David Lee had made an input into the drafting of the document. Jaroslav Nadrchal asked the Polish Physical Society to contact societies not represented at the meeting to send messages of their support to EPS.

4. Fritz Wagner raised three issues.
The energy issue: this is split between EPS Groups and Divisions but a working group has now been formed. There was expertise within the national societies and EPS would like to engage those not already involved in this.
EPS is undertaking a study of the Bologna process, including the Bachelor/Master process, how many leave after Bachelor, the extent of teaching in English and the uptake by students from abroad. EPS has discovered at short notice the possibility of gaining funding from the European Commission. Societies should contact EPS if they wish to be involved.
The Polish Physical Society is established on a regional basis. Fritz Wagner urged the establishment of subject based groups/divisions and collaboration with the EPS Groups and Divisions.
Reinhard Kulessa said that a review of all universities teaching physics and technical physics in Poland was nearing completion and the results would be made available. Bernhard Nunner commented that DPG was undertaking a study from the student perspective on the change to a bachelor/master system. 1.8k of the 8k high-school students that receive free membership of DPG had agreed to participate.
Fritz Wagner asked Maciek Kolwas to bring to the EPS Executive Committee meeting in October the conclusion of this meeting.