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Astroparticle Physics: Towards Horizon 2020

Written by katrinlink on . Posted in

23 September 2013

The European Astroparticle Physics (APP) community has been greatly successful in getting funded in the context of FP7, the previous EU Framework Programme. This EU funding has greatly contributed in the quality of scientific results obtained in the last decades. It is therefore of the utmost importance for the future of the field, that this good funding track record is continued. In this spirit, APPEC is taking a proactive role in supporting the community in their efforts to take advantage of the opportunities in Horizon2020.

Specifically, APPEC is producing a document entitled “APPEC’s guide to Horizon2020” (to be distributed in the event mentioned below), whose aim is to inform as much as possible in advance the community on the details of the funding landscape of Horizon2020. Based on the information contained in this document, the following remarks can be made:

  1. The APP community stands to profit the most from Pillar 1 – Excellent Science.
    • Focus should be put in applying for Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions (MSCA) and European Research Council (ERC) fellowships. These account for 25% of Horizon2020 funding (17.55bn euros).
    • Research Infrastructures grants should also be a great focus of the community (3,23% of the Horizon2020 budget, i.e. 2,27 B euros).
  2. The APP community should NOT ignore opportunities that can be presented in the other two pillars, since Pillar 1 is less than a third of Horizon2020.
    • In APPEC’s guide to Horizon2020, a number of calls have been selected that could be of interest to the community, with the aim of demonstrating that opportunities do exist in the other two pillars.
    • Applying for calls in the other two Pillars will require enhanced efforts in networking with industry (in the case of Pillar 2) and with scientists from other disciplines (in the case of Pillar 3). In the context of ASPERA a number of workshops were organised in order to help the community in its networking efforts (e.g. three ASPERA Technology Fora for networking with industry and three multidisciplinary workshops for networking with other disciplines). APPEC will continue the legacy of these extremely successful workshops.
  3. The following topics of great interest to the APP community could be mapped to the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET, Pillar 1) and Leadership in Enabling and Industrial Technologies (LEIT, Pillar 2) calls: e.g.
    1. Sensor networks in hostile environments
    2. Low radioactivity tracing
    3. Photonics: Photodetectors (large area, small pixels) // Extreme photonics (lasers/mirrors)
    4. Cryogenic detectors (MKIDs, TES)
    5. Materials of extreme radiopurity
    6. Space
  4. A large part of the Horizon2020 will be dedicated to ICT. In the context of ASPERA the computing APP community worked on clarifying the computing needs of the field. These efforts need to be intensified and support may come from these ICT calls. In addition, there are many calls that collaboration with CERN and eventually astrophysics (e.g. ASTRONET) will lead to joint proposals beneficial for all.
  5. The APP field is very strong on global cooperation, which is a transversal theme of Horizon2020. Taking therefore advantage of this key aspect of the field to apply in calls related to global cooperation is thus extremely important.

In this proactive role, APPEC is also organising a workshop to inform the community in more detail on the Horizon2020 opportunities. The event will take place on  4 and 5 of November in DESY-Zeuthen, Berlin and its structure is outlined in the Horizon2020 programme. In the first day, short talks will be given by representatives of the funding agencies in Brussels, who will then be available to answer any questions that the participants might have. The next day the participants will be divided into interest-themed groups for parallel sessions. Finally, in the afternoon of the 5th of November, the rapporteurs of these groups will present their plans and needs to the APPEC funding agencies.

It is strongly recommended that numerous members of the community will attend this workshop, whose aim is to give the participants a clear idea on the funding landscape for Astroparticle Physicists in the next two years, but also for the funding agencies to understand what will be the plans of the different parts of the community so that they can support them in these efforts.