SEPTEMBER 2010 - TOPICS

Short News Call of Proposals for Financial Support of Postdoctoral Fellows Call of Proposals for Support under the ESA/PRODEX PROGRAMME IMPRS for Astronomy & Astrophysics at the Univ. of Bonn and Cologne Exchanges under the "Black Holes in a Violent Universe" Action Program The 2010 Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece About this Newsletter

1. SHORT NEWS

The minutes of the meeting of the Governing Council which took place on on July 9, 2010 are available at: http://www.helas.gr/events/GC_09Jul10.pdf

2. CALL OF PROPOSALS FOR FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS

The Greek Ministry of Education and the Greek General Secretariat for Research and Technology have recently announced a call for proposals for the "Financial Support of Postdocs". Research proposals from interested young researchers have to be submitted through a Greek Higher Education Institution or a Greek research Institute. The deadline for applications is September 30th, 2010. More information can be found at: http://www.gsrt.gr/default.asp?V_ITEM_ID=6605

3. CALL OF PROPOSALS FOR SUPPORT UNDER THE ESA/PRODEX PROGRAMME

The Greek General Secretariat for Research and Technology has announced a call for proposals within the ESA programme PRODEX. PRODEX is an optional programme to which any of ESA's Member States can participate. It was created in 1986 due to the need of the smaller ESA Member States to support their scientific communities in spite of their limited financial resources. Its main objectives are to provide funding for the industrial development of scientific instruments or experiments in the various fields of space research, proposed by Institutes or Universities in the Participating States, which have been selected a) by ESA or its Member States for its/their missions and programmes and b) by non – Member States that execute national scientific programmes or missions under cooperation agreements or arrangements with ESA. This is the 1st call for proposals within PRODEX from GSRT. The deadline for the proposals submission is November 1st, 2010. More information can be found at: http://www.gsrt.gr/default.asp?V_ITEM_ID=6587

4. IMPRS FOR ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS AT THE UNIV. OF BONN AND COLOGNE

The International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Universities of Bonn and Cologne, funded by the German Max Planck Society, invites applications for its doctoral program. It is a collaboration between the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie (MPIfR), the Argelander-Institut für Astronomie (AIfA) of the University of Bonn and the I. Physikalisches Institut at the University of Cologne. The official and working language of the school is English. The IMPRS for Astronomy and Astrophysics offers a broad spectrum of topics in observational and theoretical galactic and extragalactic astrophysics, observational and theoretical cosmology, and fundamental physics such as: AGN Astrophysics * Structure and Kinematics of AGN Jets * Extragalactic Relativistic Flows * Multi-band Blazar Astrophysics – Multi-frequency AGN Polarimetry * VLBI Studies of AGNs * Infrared Interferometry of Disks and Jets of Young Stars * Protoplanetary Disks * Radiative Transfer Modeling * Galactic Masers * Infra-Red Interferometry of AGN * Gravitational Lensing * Galactic and Extragalactic Magnetic Fields * High Precision Astrometry * Stellar Astrophysics and Stellar Evolution * Supermassive Binary Black Holes in AGN * Stellar Population Studies * Astro-chemistry * Galactic Dynamics * Binary Pulsars * Neutron Stars * Experimental tests of gravity * Transient Radio Sky * Faraday Galaxy Tomography * Radio Pulsars * Gravitational Wave Detection with Pulsar Timing * Stellar Cluster Dynamics * Dark Matter * Galactic Center Studies The call for applications is open until November 15, 2010. Students with a M.Sc. degree or diploma (preferably including a thesis) in Physics or closely related subjects are encouraged to apply. For more information visit: http://www.mpifr.de/imprs

5. EXCHANGES UNDER THE "BLACK HOLES IN A VIOLENT UNIVERSE" ACTION PROGRAM

The European COST action "Black Holes in a Violent Universe" will announce on the 20th of September 2010 the second call for applications to fund exchange visits between scientists in Institutes which are located in a country which participates in this COST action (Greece is a participant country). Financial support for exchange visits is one of the most important activities within this action. Support will be provided to visits which aim to strengthen current collaborative projects, establish new collaborations, obtain necessary knowledge for the application of new techniques, and/or use host infrastructures that are not available at the home institute. The applicant could be either a PhD student, a PostDoc or a staff member in an organization of either the public or the private sector. Only projects related to one of the main research areas supported by the action ("Quantum black holes", "stellar mass black holes & pulsars", "the Galactic center", and "supermassive black holes") will be considered. For further information, please check the action's web site: http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/div/vlbi/COST

6. The 2010 DECADAL SURVEY OF ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS

The 2010 Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics, entitled "New Worlds, News Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics" was recently released. The Survey was prepared by a Committee chaired by Prof. R. Blanford, under the auspices of the US National Academies of Science. It is based on a comprehensive community-driven process, and presents exciting yet realistic recommendations for the priorities in US Astronomy over the next decade. A summary on the report is available here, and the full prepublication copy (225pages, 85Mbytes) is available at: http://www.helas.gr/events/astro2010_report.pdf

7. UPCOMING ASTRONOMY MEETINGS IN GREECE

The following meetings will take place in Greece. Please check the corresponding web page or contact the organizers by e-mail for more information.

Challenges in Infrared Extragalactic Astrophysics II Crete, 27 September - 1 October 2010 10th Cluster Anniversary, Understanding the Solar Wind-Magnetosphere Interaction at Multiple Scales with Cluster and THEMIS Corfu, 27 September - 1 October 2010 High Energy View of Accreting Objects: AGN and X-ray Binaries Crete, 5-14 October 2010

8. ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER

This Newsletter was sent to all members of Hel.A.S. who have e-mail access. The next edition of the Newsletter will be mailed around October 1st 2010. Please send your announcements (e.g. appointments/departures, job openings, research opportunities, awards, conferences in Greece) or comments before September 25, 2010. If you do not wish to receive future issues of this Newsletter or the e-mail address to which it was sent is not your preferred one, please inform the Secretary of Hel.A.S.