IPSEC VII - Informal meeting of Physical Societies 7 September 2009, KrakówPresent:Sergei Kilin - Belarusian Physical Society Dongmei Gu - Chinese Physical Society Yu-Xin Nie - Chinese Physical Society Guo-Zhen Yang - Chinese Physical Society Chuang Zhang - Chinese Physical Society Jaroslav Dittrich - Czech Physical Society Jaroslav Nadrchal - EPS Committee on European Integration (Chair) Maciej Kolwas - EPS and Polish Physical Society David Lee - EPS Peter Melville - EPS Christian Kurrer - European Commission, DG for Research Peter Genath - German Physical Society Simonetta Croci - Italian Physical Society Zbig Sobiesierski - Institute of Physics Juozas Vaitkus - Lithuanian Physical Society Marian Reiffers - Slovak Physical Society Chin-Kun Hu - Physical Society of the Republic of China (Taiwan) Valeriy Yashchuk - Ukrainian Physical Society Jacek Baranowski - Polish Physical Society Szymon Bauch - Polish Physical Society Krzysztof Dzierżęga - Polish Physical Society Wiesław Kamiński - Polish Physical Society Jacek Kossut - Polish Academy of Sciences and Polish Physical Society Reinhard Kulessa - Polish Physical Society Jerzy Langer - Polish Physical Society Karol Musioł - Rector of the Jagiellonian University and Polish Physical Society Leszek Sirko - Polish Physical Society Henryk Szymczak - Polish Physical Society Jacek Gierliński - Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education The event consisted of four separate elements: participation in the opening ceremony of the XL Meeting of Polish Physicists, optional laboratory visits to the Atomic Physics Department, the Photonics Department and the Physics of Nanostructures and Nanotechnology Department of the Institute of Physics of the Jagiellonian University, the meeting itself and a dinner giving opportunity for further informal discussion. These notes related primarily to the meeting. Reinhard Kulessa, as President of the Polish Physical Society, welcomed everyone to Kraków. The Polish Physical Society was very grateful to financial assistance from EPS for the meeting. He presented apologies from Sergei Bagayev from Russia, who unfortunately was unable to attend, but had sent a message wishing the meeting success and hoping for future fruitful co-operation between physicists in Russia and Poland. Reinhard Kulessa and Chin-Kun Hu signed an extension of a co-operation agreement between the Polish Physical Society and the Physical Society of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Reinhard Kulessa passed the chair to Jaroslav Nadrchal, Chair of the EPS Committee on European Integration. Jaroslav Nadrchal explained the agenda. First there would be a presentation by Jerzy Langer on the EU Framework Programmes. This would be followed by a related presentation by Henryk Szymczak on regional structures. There would then be presentations describing the Chinese and Ukrainian Physical Societies. 1. Jerzy Langer's presentation on The Framework Programme and Beyond is attached as an appendix. Some of the principal points he raised are as follows. The Framework money is for things the Member States cannot do on their own. The assessment needs to be done by scientists but the programmes are decided by administrators, and thus there needs to be a modus operandi between the two. In 2009 FP7 is 1% of the world and 3% of the 27 EU Member States GERD. R&D are being hit by the financial crisis with state budgets maintaining science. There is a danger of a two-speed Europe as there is not much in the way of Centres of Excellence in the Eastern part of the EU and there is a difference by a factor of two in grants to old Member States and new Member States. The system is slow, taking a year between submitting the application and getting the money. There is a decrease in the participation by business and industry in the Framework Programme. A problem of the EU budget is that the majority is spent on agriculture. The Framework programme needs to be redefined: 1) it should not be used to "feed up small fish", 2) frontier science needs to get frontiers moving, 3) it should help to achieve what Member States cannot do alone. Intergovernmental spending is almost as large as the Framework Programme. A new deal is required urgently. For this it is important to: abandon just retour, accept a common pot, agree on common benchmarking, harmonize procedures (and use English), and increase the portability of EU grants. 2. Henryk Szymczak spoke on a related topic - Regional Scientific Infrastructure - a good solution for new and old members of the EU. In his view it was not a good solution. ESFRI was launched in 2002 and gave a list of opportunities, but these apply mainly to the richer parts of Europe. This included European projects and global projects such as ITER. The roadmap included 240 proposals, of which 44 projects were accepted. These pan-European but do not cover the Eastern part of Europe. There needs to be a balance across Europe to avoid the problem of a brain drain. Member States are being called upon to develop and invest in Regional Partner Facilities. One such region is the Central Region, which covers Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Poland. If the route of Regional Scientific Infrastructures is followed there is a danger of a two-speed Europe. 3. Various points came up in discussion of these two presentations. It is misconception that industry is getting most of the money from the Framework Programme. Originally it was 50% of a much smaller amount than is now available and the amount going to industry is decreasing. Although the Framework Programme is for increasing competitiveness much goes on basic research. Physics currently accounts for about 5% of the budget, but this may become more with the Grand Challenges. European Countries that are not in the EU can participate. The EU has paid particular attention to Russia. In the event of problems scientists are advised to go directly to the European Commission rather than through their countries. Christian Kurrer commented that the Commission was in the process of preparing FP8. There is much contained in the ESFRI roadmap. There was a need to increase the role of scientific societies in the process, but the societies need to get more involved first. A more important question than where will the money go is where does the money come from . national governments. Jerzy Langer commented that in addition to the Framework Programme there was quite a lot of money in the structural funds and some of this should go into intellectual pursuits. One should not ask for just retour on research as Poland, for example, gets much more money from other EU funds. 4. Dongmei Gu described the Chinese Physical Society (CPS). It was founded it 1932 when 19 participants attended the inaugural meeting, but has grown dramatically reaching nearly 40,000 members in 2003. The current president is Guo-Zhen Yang. The CPS has 28 specialized committees, 8 working groups and 31 provincial societies. Its General Assembly is held every four years, its National Council with 100 members meets biennially and the Executive Council of 29 members meets every three months. The CPS has an annual fall meeting, it publishes 22 journals and has eight awards. CPS holds national student competitions, from which the winners go to the International Physics Olympiad. CPS is a member of IUPAP and of AAPPS (Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies), and has co-operation agreements with EPS, the Institute of Physics, and with the German, American and Vietnamese Physical Societies. 4. Valeriy Yashchuk described the Ukrainian Physical Society. This was founded in 1990. It signed agreements with the physical societies in Poland, Moldova and the Baltic states between 1990 and 1993, with the American Physical Society in 1992, and in 1994 became a Member Society of EPS. It held a congress on Physics in the Ukraine in 2005 and the fifth congress took place in Kyiv in June 2009. The publishing activities include the Ukrainian Journal of Physics. The Society collaborates with EPS and hosted an EPS Executive Committee meeting in Kyiv in 2006. The Society hopes that, with the help of EPS, it may do something to bridge the gap between the Academy of Sciences and the universities. 5. Chin-Kun Hu spoke on the Physical Society of the Republic of China (Taiwan). This is a member of IUPAP now listed as China (Taipei). It holds an annual meeting with 1,100 members and hosts international conferences such as ICCP 2009 (International Conference on Computational Physics). It has agreements with the Korean, American, Japanese and Polish Physical Societies. 6. The following points came up in discussion. Peter Genath said that in Germany they were trying to increase the number of women in physics, currently 12% of the membership, and asked about the percentage of women in the Chinese Physical Society. Dongmei Gu replied that it was high at 30-40% because a large number of high school teachers in the Society. Following from Christian Kurrer.s comment that societies must become stronger to interact with governments, David Lee noted that this was already the case in Germany and the UK but asked other physical societies about their contacts with their governments. In Taiwan it should be possible because it is a democracy. In China the CPS has a working group on education, which makes proposals to government, and Guo-Zhen Yang commented that there was a very important physicist who was also a member of Congress and that there were also very good links through the Academy of Sciences. In the Ukraine the physical society is able to influence government on education. Likewise in Belarus they send proposals to government and have an influence. In Lithuania politicians tend to hear but not listen. In Poland the physical society is often asked its views by government, but other bodies such as the Academy of Science have greater influence. The Polish Physical Society is putting forward very strong opinions regarding education because of the poor quality of student coming from school. Jerzy Langer commented that our strength can only be in those areas where we represent superiority over other science, such as in benchmarking, common procedures, global warming. Christian Kurrer asked about the brain drain, noting that there were a lot of students from China in Europe and USA. Yu-Xin Nie replied that ten years ago this had been a problem, but now many people are staying at home. In closing Jaroslav Nadrchal thanked the Polish Physical Society for organizing the meeting. |