Achievements in reporting period:

  • List of activities organised during reporting period
    • Planning for future events, see below
  • Meetings attended – both meetings for NA organisation or meetings on behalf of RadioNet
    • Karl-Ludwig Klein attended the RadioNet Kickoff Meeting 30-31/03/2009

Problems / Issues

  • Issues - organisational, administrative or other problems foreseen
    • It would be very helpful to have RadioNet email lists
      • To notify leading members of RadioNet of planned events;
      • To circulate notice of events to the Community as widely as possible (this might also include lists of other lists, e.g. e-MERLIN community list).
    • Where we have made block bookings for accomodation, or in some cases where student travel is supported by RadioNet, the organisations (colleges, travel agents etc.) need to issue a single invoice, in order to get the best deal/simplify or avoid tax problems. A breakdown of people supported can be provided separately. We are grateful to the RadioNet and local admin for helping to solve one-off problems but a recognised mechanism would help.
    • The web pages containing talks, scripts etc. from events such as ERIS have lasting value and we hope that RadioNet can continue to provide a stable and accessible home for these.
    • There is a request for a YERAC template, and also a brief history of YERAC (list of venues over the years, at least).
    • We note that the NA4 proposal only covered 3 core events (YERAC, ERIS, Solar or Single Dish School) per year, each covering material relevant to a range of European facilities. We regret that we have had to decline requests for support from LOFAR and CASA events in 2009, since the funding awarded was less than the already tight amounts budgeted for the 3 core events. In the next round of funding we should consider adding a contingency fund to allow us to make small awards to smaller training events which fulfil suitable eligibility criteria.
  • Red flags - major problems
    • None forseen at present

Forward Look

  • Plan for next year – 12 month outlook, more detail in first 6 month (including budget for each planned school/workshop)
    • YERAC 2009 University of Porto (Portugal) 2009 July 29-31
      • Web site: http://www.fc.up.pt/yerac/yerac_2009
      • YERAC, the Young European Radio Astronomers' Conference, has been held annually since 1968, circulating round Europe. Talks are exclusively by MSc/PhD/early PDRA and this year cover instrumentation, observational cosmology, AGNs, star/planet formation, pulsars and masers, galaxies and galaxy clusters. This will be the first time that the event has taken place in Portugal.
      • SOC: Jose Afonso(OAL), Sonia Anton (CICGE-SIM; chair), Pedro Augusto (UM), Domingos Barbosa (IT), Dalmiro Maia (CICGE), Karl-Ludwig Klein (Radionet), Nanda Kumar (CAUP), Anita Richards (Radionet)
      • Participants: 47 from 13 countries (1 non European)
    • ERIS 2009 University of Oxford 2009 September 7-11
      • Web Site:http://astrowiki.physics.ox.ac.uk/ERIS2009/
      • European Radio Interferometry School: Lectures and hands-on sessions, this year covering mainly cm-wave practical examples, but with talks on all major European interferometry facilities.
      • SOC: Willem Baan (ASTRON), Rob Beswick (JBCA), Pierre Cox (RadioNet), Ian Heywood (Oxford), Karl-Ludwig Klein (RadioNet), Hans-Rainer Kloeckner (Oxford), Robert Laing (ESO), Anita Richards (RadioNet, Chair), Tiziana Venturi (Bologna).
      • To date, about 50 participants from 16 countries, 2 outside Europe. Registration still open.
    • Fifth IRAM Summer School Pradollano (Spain) 2009 September 4-11
      • Website: http://www.iram.es/IRAMES/events/summerschool2009/
      • Paving the way: From Millimeter to Far-Infrared Astronomy - lectures and hands-on single-dish observing sessions.
      • Lecturers: Santiago Garcia-Burillo (OAN, Madrid), Bertrand Lefloch (Observatoire de Grenoble), Carsten Kramer (IRAM, Granada), Raphael Moreno (OBSPM, Paris), Jerome Pety (IRAM, Grenoble), Clemens Thum (IRAM, Grenoble), Adam Leroy (MPIA, Heidelberg), Axel Weiss (MPIfR, Bonn).
      • 46 participants from 14 countries (5 outside Europe). Registration still open.
    • CESRA summer school project “Radio Physics of the Sun and the Interplanetary Medium” 2010 autumn (4-5 days)
      • Venue under investigation
      • SoC H. Aurass (Potsdam), K.-L. Klein (Meudon & Radionet; chair), A. MacKinnon (Glasgow), V. Melnikov (Nizhnyi Novgorod), A. Nindos (Ioannina), S. Poedts (Leuven ; European Solar Phys Div of EPS), S. Pohjolainen (Turku)
      • The School will cover key subjects in solar radio physics such as emission mechanisms, magnetic fields in the corona and their role in energy storage and release. Observing and data processing techniques will encompass a frequency range from sub-mm to m waves and longer, using spaceborne radio observations relevant to the Sun-Earth connection.
    • 2010 further events
      • YERAC - Yebes, Spain
      • ERIS - Grenoble, September or October
    • 2011 events
      • Single-dish school
      • ERIS - provisionally ASTRON/JIVE
      • YERAC - provisionally Manchester
  • Expected milestones/deliverables
    • Maintain web sites providing informational and pedagogic material (talks, lectures, tutorials) prepared for the schools and workshops
    • All Monitor publications and (if possible) observing proposals using RadioNet facilities by participants in the events.
    • YERAC We forsee pan-European links between new astronomers, including the young researchers currently based in Portugal.
    • Solar summer school Publication
  • Expenditures - equipment, material and services
    • The bulk (over 75%) of the expenditure will be on accomodation, travel and other support for students and other participants in the workshops and for collective events (e.g. telescope trip). The remainder will be for incidentals (e.g. handouts) and the expenses of lecturers and tutors.
    • The budget allocations (upper limits to projected expenditure) are:
      • YERAC: Radionet 9000 euros and Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) 2500 euros
      • ERIS: RadioNet 22320 euros and 2500 GBP from the UK Royal Astronomical Society
      • Single Dish Workshop, Solar school RadioNet 6250 euros
    • There may be additional external contributions not listed above; in particular, we are grateful to the host insititutes providing free accomodation and in some cases food, and to lecturers and participants who are claiming travel etc, from their institutes.

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