Interview with Gonzalo Merino, director of the Port d’Informació Científica
At the Joint ECFA-NuPECC-APPEC (JENA) Seminar in May 2022 in Madrid, both the plenary presentations and the closed session of funding agency representatives revealed that there is an increased need for discussions on the strategy and implementation of European federated computing at future large-scale research facilities. Therefore, APPEC, ECFA and NuPECC decided to organize a European, cross-community workshop on the strategy of computing. Gonzalo Merino, director of the Port d’Informació Científica, is part of the Organizing Team and will explain the implementation and aims of the workshop.
During the JENA Seminar the status and needs of computing for all three communities was discussed. Can you shortly explain, what are the differences and commonalities?
I actually see more commonalities than differences. Each of the three communities has its own specific research program of course, but I think they show a lot of synergies in their common quest to understand fundamental physics questions such as the nature of dark matter, the origin of the highest energy cosmic rays or many others. Last year we heard a lot of examples of this for instance in detectors, or accelerator programs. But it is in the software and computing that I think the commonalities and potential synergies are more evident. To carry out our research program, we increasingly rely on massive amounts of experimental data as well as complex simulations. In this data-driven era that we live in, our science depends more and more on computing. Both, the availability of large computing and data infrastructures and our capability of developing and maintaining a rich software ecosystem to exploit this increasing complexity. There are several challenges ahead, and they all affect the three communities: handling exabyte size datasets keeping budget under control, making effective use of increasingly powerful HPC machines and new architectures such as GPUs, incorporating emerging paradigms such as AI or, more into the future, quantum computing into our analyses and, probably above all of them, training and retaining the talented people that is needed to build and maintain all this infrastructure. For the differences, we could say that there has not been a long tradition of working together on these topics, but I see a change of trend and I am confident that there is an emerging transversal conversation.
How can the workshop contribute to addressing the computing challenge in the coming years?
I think the workshop can be an important catalyst for the cross-community dialogue and work that we need to see in the future. Initiatives like the ESCAPE project planted the seed for this process, which has now to consolidate. There are activities in place, such as EOSC-Future, or others being planned that I hope will stimulate this common development environment. I think that the software and computing challenges are common and very complex, not only for our three communities but also for many others. To me, one of the key aspects to succeed in managing that complexity is to work together and develop common infrastructure.
Credits: CERN
What format do you plan for the workshop? Will there be talks or discussions?
There will be both talks and discussions, but I hope we will have plenty of the latter. We will first have a number of talks to set the scene, remind us of the main challenges and the evolution of the global landscape. Then, we should have plenty of time for discussing the main issues, guided by experts from different fields organised in various panels. This will happen mostly on the second day of the workshop.
What do you hope to get out of the workshop?
I hope we end our meeting with a clearer vision of the roadmap for jointly developing the future software and computing infrastructure for our communities, and with a strategy to speak as a single voice in the global e-infrastructures conversation. Acknowledging that we are of course not alone in this ecosystem, hence we will also need to establish connections beyond our fields, with communities such as the photon sciences, life sciences or earth observation, to just name the most obvious that come to my mind.
Gonzalo Merino
Gonzalo Merino is the Director of PIC, a scientific-technological center near Barcelona that specializes in data-intensive research and which is jointly operated by CIEMAT and IFAE. PIC collaborates with scientists from different disciplines to develop advanced data handling services. It also provides data preservation and analysis services for the ATLAS, CMS and LHCb experiments of the LHC, the MAGIC telescopes in La Palma, the Euclid ESA satellite mission and others. From 2013 to 2018 he was at University of Wisconsin Madison managing the computing for the IceCube Neutrino telescope, located at the South Pole. Gonzalo did a PhD in Physics at the UAB analyzing ALEPH data, one of the four experiments at LEP, the former particle collider at CERN.
Nicolaus Copernicus, the famous Polish astronomer was born on 19 February 1473. On this occasion, astronomers and physicists from around the world, including five Nobel Prize winners, met at the World Copernican Congress on 19-21 February 2023 in his birth town of Toruń, Poland.
The Congress marked the commencement of activities of the Copernican Academy, a new scientific institution that has recently been formed in Poland. One of its main objectives will be to help strengthen Polish science, especially in the dimension of international cooperation. The event was part of the program of the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development.
The APPEC chair Andreas Haungs at the World Copernican Congress in Toruń, Poland.
The Academy will focus on selected research areas, aligned with the areas of interest and activity of Copernicus, a man of Renaissance, for the purpose of which five thematic Chambers, or Colleges, were created:
Chamber of Astronomy and Mathematical and Natural Sciences,
Chamber of Medical Sciences,
Chamber of Economic and Management Sciences,
Chamber of Philosophy and Theology,
Chamber of Legal Sciences.
APPEC’s General Assembly was well represented at the Congress, with Dr. Andreas Haungs and Prof. Antoine Kouchner (the chair and deputy chair of the General Assembly), as well as Profs. Christian Stegmann and Leszek Roszkowski attending. Professor Roszkowski was elected to the Chamber of Astronomy and Mathematical and Natural Sciences, and so was Prof. Arthur B. McDonald (Canada), one of the Nobel Prize in Physics (2015) winners attending the Congress. Two other Nobel laureates, Profs. Barry Barish (2017) and Jim Peebles (2019) also received their awards for ground-working work in, respectively, particle astrophysics and cosmology. Several other leading figures in physics were present, including the newly appointed director of DZA, Prof. Guenther Hasinger.
NOTICE BOARD – those Ukrainian teams who still don´t have a European partner, and those European possible partners that still don´t have contacts with a possible Ukrainian implementing team are offered to publish an announcement about their search for collaborations on the Indico Portal Notice Board. They need to fill the word template available on the indico portal https://indico.desy.de/event/38700/ and send it to applications@eurizon-project.euin order to have their announcement published.
MAILING LIST – all interested people who would like to receive updates and news about further opportunities and initiatives for Ukrainian researcher and for the sustainability of Ukrainian RIs are encouraged to register to this mailing list:News (eurizon-project.eu).
eRImote (https://erimote.eu/) is a Horizon Europe funded project that aims to improve remote and digital access to research infrastructure (RI) services in a cross-domain manner.
The project will collect good practices on remote access to RIs from different communities and gather them in an publicly available information platform. It will also develop policy recommendations on the advantages and challenges of remote access. The ambition is to reduce the CO2- footprint of RIs and increase access inclusiveness as a result.
To achieve its objectives, a variety of different stakeholders and representatives will be involved in workshops and expert groups organized by the eRImote consortium to gather information on remote and digital access strategies at RIs. In 2023, five expert groups will bring together people with expertise in the field of remote access to serve as a platform for sharing experiences as well as for the collection of data on solutions and bottlenecks for remote access in the different scientific domains. More information on the expert groups in the eRImote project and a registration link for interested experts is available on the website.
To learn more about eRImote and the activities visit the eRImote website or follow on Twitter or LinkedIn. For further questions, please feel free to contact .
With the presence of Daniel Filmus (Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation of the Nation), Matías Cánepa (Minister of Education, Culture, Science and Technology of Salta), Adriana Serquis (President of CNEA), Ana Franchi (President of CONICET), Alberto Carral (Major of San Antonio de los Cobres), members of the local community and scientists in QUBIC Collaboration, represented by their spokespersons Silvia Masi (Italy), Jean-Christophe Hamilton (France) and Alberto Echegoyen (Argentina), the Observatory was inaugurated. Credits: MINCyT
The QUBIC Observatory was inaugurated on Wednesday November 23rd at its 5000m a.s.l. site in Alto Corrillos, Salta Province, Argentina. A collaboration between France, Italy, Argentina, United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, QUBIC is dedicated to the Cosmic Microwave Background polarimetry, more specifically seeking for the B-mode polarization. Discovering this elusive signal (at best a signal of 45nK over a background of 3K) generated by primordial gravitational waves would confirm for the first time that the Universe underwent inflation during its first fractions of seconds (10-35sec). The existence of primordial Gravitational Waves would also be the first direct evidence for a quantum nature of spacetime.
QUBIC at its 5000m a.s.l. in Alto Chorrillos, Salta Province, Argentina. Credits: CONICET
QUBIC is based on a novel technology, Bolometric Interferometry, that combines the high sensitivity of cryogenic bolometers cooled down to 300mK, with the high control of instrumental systematics provided by imaging interference fringes. Thanks to its interferometric nature, QUBIC is also able to perform spectral imaging, with a spectral resolution about 5 times higher than other CMB instruments. This is a key asset for controlling the contamination to the primordial B-mode polarization arising from Galactic foregrounds such as the thermal emission from dust in our Milky Way Galaxy.
Commissioning will begin in the next weeks with the current instrument on-site, the technical demonstrator, which will acquire data over the next year and will undergo an upgrade to the final instrument in early 2024. With three years of data, QUBIC aims at achieving a sensitivity of the primordial B-modes competitive with other contemporary instruments.
Interview with Günther Hasinger, designated director of DZA
At the end of September, the German BMBF announced its decision that the German Center for Astrophysics (DZA) had been selected as a new research center in Lusatia. In a multi-stage procedure, this proposal, submitted by scientists from astronomy and astroparticle physics led by Günther Hasinger, prevailed over its competitors.
Congratulations to you and your whole team! This success will have great impact on the development of astronomy and astroparticle physics, not only in Germany. Can you explain the scientific aim and the mission of this new research center?
Mulitmessenger physics at the German Center for Astrophysics. Credits: DESY
The DZA has three main pillars: research, technology and digitalization. The research in principle will cover several fields of astrophysics in synergy, but in the beginning, we concentrate on areas with high innovation potential in technology and digitization: radio and gravitational wave astronomy. Both areas have exciting new developments and instruments that provide huge opportunities, especially in opening innovation potential and collaboration with industry. In particular radio astronomy will produce (among) the largest rate and volume of data in any kind of science, pre-empting future requirements across society and science. Our research mission thus has a large societal impact.
The competition “Wissen.schafft.Perspektiven” (Knowledge.creates.perspectives) is intended to provide regional structural support. How was the DZA able to convince here?
We start with strengthening the positive elements already existing in the region: its location in the very center of Europe with close connections to the Polish and Czech republic; the surrounding Universities and colleges with a scientific and technological focus; the breadth and depth of surrounding industries as partners in technology development and digitization; the local people firmly rooted in the region with great openness and curiosity for new development; and last not least, the unique seismographic conditions in granite rock: the Treasure of Lusatia.
One element for our success is the excellent team team spirit we were able to demonstrate throughout the preparation process in the whole region. Our strength is the leading competence and experience from research and development through planning to the implementation of major projects and operation. We do not have to build national and international networks. We will bring them with us.
Drilling site in Cunnewitz. Credits: DESY/ Paul Glaser
How can science profit the chosen location?
We want to create a national lighthouse with an international appeal with a research mission of high societal impact. The unique combination of research and development in digitization, sensor technology and materials research provide jobs with a long-term future in many areas and a magnet for business and institutions, support for start-ups and spin-offs, transfer. This requires new education for a whole generation from day care through vocational training to university and gives prospects for young people in the region, securing the need for skilled workers. We attract people and prevent brain drain.
How will this research center influence astronomy and astroparticle physics in Germany and in Europe?
Germany is making outstanding contributions to astronomical research, e.g. exemplified by the Nobel Prize for the Black Hole in our Milky Way. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) and European Space Agency (ESA), organized through state treaties, allow German astrophysics to play leading roles. However, for future large international astrophysics projects the situation is different. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio observatory is e.g. planned jointly by various nations, the Einstein Telescope, the Vera Rubin Observatory, and the European Solar Telescope all require new national structures that are not existing in Germany today. SKA is calling for regional data centres. The Einstein Telescope is looking for partners in Europe to set up large test and development centres for gravitational wave interferometers. The possibilities for German industry to participate in such tenders require institutional commitment. The DZA therefore has an important national role in astrophysics and astroparticle physics.
What is the timeline of this project?
The project starts with a three-year build-up phase, anchored at the Technical University Dresden, where the formal legal foundation process is prepared and all the major plans for construction, digitization and technology development are prepared. Already during this phase we want to employ several high-level leadership positions in cooperation with the TU Dresden.
The formal foundation procedure is expected for early 2026, when a roughly 10-year ramp-up and construction phase begins. The final center will host about 1000 employees in three institutes, for astrophysics, technology and digitization at the campus in Görlitz and a Low Seismic underground lab in the Lusatia granite block between Bautzen, Hoyerswerda and Kamenz.
Günther Hasinger, Credits: DESY/ Paul Glaser
Günther Hasinger, currently director of Science at ESA and Head of ESAC, was born in Oberammergau, Germany, in 1954. Between 1994 and 2001 he has been a professor at the University of Potsdam and served as director of the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam. In 2001 he was appointed as the director High Energy Group at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE). In 2008 he became scientific director at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) which he left in 2011 to serve as the director of the Institute for Astronomy (IfA) of the University of Hawaii at Manoa until he moved to ESA in 2017. He has held the chair of the Council of German Observatories (RDS) and served as the president of the International Astronomical Union Division on Space and High Energy Astrophysics. Günther Hasinger played a key role in the operation of X-ray satellites, the development of future observatories or the discoveries of the cosmic X-ray background radiation. He received numerous awards for his scientific achievements, including the Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the international Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Award and the Wilhelm Förster Prize for public dissemination of science. He is a member of the Academia Europea, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, and Leopoldina (the German National Academy of Sciences), and an external member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Entrance of the accelerator room for the 3.5 MV Singletron®. The walls are made of 80 cm thick concrete. During accelerator operation the sliding concrete door must be closed. It has been shown that outside the building the accelerator induced neutron flux is at least a factor of two lower than the natural neutron background inside the underground laboratories, which in turn is three orders of magnitude lower than the cosmic neutron flux at earth surface.
Since 1992, accelerators are used at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories (LNGS) of the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) to study the Big Bang, the centre of the Sun and stars in general. First, the home-built 50 kV accelerator LUNA-50 was installed. The pioneering experiment carried out with this machine by the LUNA collaboration (Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics) allowed to study for the first time the cross section of the fusion reaction 3He+3He at solar conditions. This measurement, which due its extremely low reaction rate of less than one event per day would not have been possible in any aboveground laboratory, provided a key contribution to establish Neutrino Oscillation as solution of the so called “Solar Neutrino problem”. In view of this the Bethe Price 2010 has been awarded to Claus E. Rolfs, co-found of the LUNA-Collaboration, “For seminal contributions to the experimental determination of nuclear cross-sections in stars, including the first direct measurement of the key 3He fusion reaction at solar conditions.”
While LUNA-50 was decommissioned in 2001, LUNA-400, a commercial 400 kV Singltron® accelerator, was put to service in 2000. One of the first results obtained using this machine was the measurement of the 14N(p,γ)15O reaction, the bottleneck of the CNO cycle. Its rate was found to be a factor of two slower than expected. This result had several consequences, such as increasing the age of globular clusters by about 1 Gy and reducing the CNO solar neutrinos by a factor of two. Recently, a cross-section determination of the most important reaction affecting the primordial abundance of deuterium during Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) (i.e., D(p,γ) H) carried at LUNA-400 has been published in Nature and settled the previously most uncertain nuclear physics input to BBN calculations.
The National Laboratories of Gran Sasso, with financial support from the Italian Ministry of Research (Progetto Premiale “LUNAMV”), are currently expanding their accelerator park by installing a new 3.5 MV Singletron® machine from High Voltage Engineering Europe. The machine has already proven to provide intense proton, helium, and carbon beams (1, 0.5, and 0.15 mA, respectively) with well-defined energy resolution and stability for precision nuclear astrophysics measurement. It is currently in the final phase of commissioning in a dedicated laboratory built in the Hall B of LNGS.
In a second step, the LUNA-400 Singletron® machine will be overhauled and moved to the immediate vicinity of the 3.5 MV Singletron®.
The 3.5 MV Singltron® located inside the shielded accelerator room. The machine is equipped with two beamlines. The machine will be part of the LNGS IBF, which will be operated as a scientific user facility.
The complementary 400 kV and 3.5 MV accelerators will be the heart of the new LNGS Ion Beam Facility (IBF). The IBF will open new frontiers in nuclear astrophysics, nuclear physics research and applied sciences. A proposal for a first set of measurements has been presented by the LUNA Collaboration. It includes the reactions14N(p,γ)15O, related to stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis, and specifically the “metallicity” of the solar core; 12C+12C, affecting crucially the final fate of intermediate-mass and massive stars and the associated nucleosynthesis and 13C(α,n)16O and 22Ne(α,n)25Mg, which provide the source of neutrons in stellar interiors (the latter being in the context of the ERC Starting Grant SHADES).
In the course of the next years, the LNGS IBF will be developed into a scientific user facility for nuclear astrophysics, nuclear physics research and applied sciences. In view of this an Accelerator Service and a Program Advisory Committee (PAC) have been established recently.
While the landscape of deep-underground accelerator laboratories has grown in recent years, with the Compact Accelerator System for Performing Astrophysical Research (CASPAR) at the SURF (USA), and Jinping Underground Nuclear Astrophysics (JUNA) at the China Jinping Underground Laboratory providing first results, in particular new 3.5 MV Singletron® at LNGS does stand out with its energy range and intense carbon beam.
The LNGS Ion Beam Facility will allow LNGS to maintain its leadership in the field of underground nuclear astrophysics gained by the work of the LUNA Collaboration. It will also provide unique possibilities in the area of applied sciences, for example, environment or material science.
Hubble image of the spiral galaxy NGC 1068. Credit: NASA/ESA/A. van der Hoeven
For the first time, an international team of scientists have found evidence of high-energy neutrino emission from NGC 1068, also known as Messier 77, an active galaxy in the constellation Cetus and one of the most familiar and well-studied galaxies to date. First spotted in 1780, this galaxy, located 47 million light-years away from us, can be observed with large binoculars. The results were published in Science, and shared in an online scientific webinar that gathered experts, journalists, and scientists from around the globe.
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory reported the first observation of a high-energy astrophysical neutrino source in 2018. The source, TXS 0506+056, is a known blazar located off the left shoulder of the Orion constellation and 4 billion light-years away.
“One neutrino can single out a source. But only an observation with multiple neutrinos will reveal the obscured core of the most energetic cosmic objects,” says Francis Halzen, a professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and principal investigator of IceCube. He adds, “IceCube has accumulated some 80 neutrinos of teraelectronvolt energy from NGC 1068, which are not yet enough to answer all our questions, but they definitely are the next big step towards the realization of neutrino astronomy.”
Unlike light, neutrinos can escape in large numbers from extremely dense environments in the universe and reach Earth largely undisturbed by matter and the electromagnetic fields that permeate extragalactic space. Although scientists envisioned neutrino astronomy more than 60 years ago, the weak interaction of neutrinos with matter and radiation makes their detection extremely difficult. Neutrinos could be key to our queries about the workings of the most extreme objects in the cosmos.
A winterover standing in front of the IceCube Lab at the South Pole, with auroras and Milky Way overhead. Credit: Josh Veitch-Michaelis, IceCube/NSF
NGC 1068 is an active galaxy—a Seyfert II type in particular—seen from Earth at an angle that obscures its central region where the black hole is located. In a Seyfert II galaxy, a torus of nuclear dust obscuresmost of the high-energy radiation produced by the dense mass of gas and particles that slowly spiral inward toward the center of the galaxy.
“Recent models of the black hole environments in these objects suggest that gas, dust, and radiation should block the gamma rays that would otherwise accompany the neutrinos,” says Hans Niederhausen, a postdoctoral associate at Michigan State University. “This neutrino detection from the core of NGC 1068 will improve our understanding of the environments around supermassive black holes.”
NGC 1068 could become a standard candle for future neutrino telescopes, according to Theo Glauch, a postdoctoral associate at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), in Germany.
“It is already a very well-studied object for astronomers, and neutrinos will allow us to see this galaxy in a totally different way. A new view will certainly bring new insights,” says Glauch.With the neutrino measurements of TXS 0506+056 and NGC 1068, IceCube is one step closer to answering the century-old question of the origin of cosmic rays. Additionally, these results imply that there may be many more similar objects in the universe yet to be identified. “The unveiling of the obscured universe has just started, and neutrinos are set to lead a new era of discovery in astronomy,” says Elisa Resconi, a professor of physics at TUM.
“It is great news for the future of our field,” says Marek Kowalski, an IceCube collaborator and senior scientist at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, in Germany. “It means that with a new generation of more sensitive detectors there will be much to discover. The future IceCube-Gen2 observatory could not only detect many more of these extreme particle accelerators but would also allow their study at even higher energies. It’s as if IceCube handed us a map to a treasure trove.”
“Evidence for neutrino emission from the nearby active galaxy NGC 1068,” The IceCube Collaboration: R. Abbasi et al., Science 378, 6619 (2022), DOI:10.1126/science.abg3395 / arXiv:2211.09972
Frank Calaprice in Campo Imperatore, Gran Sasso, during a summer school. Credits: Borexino Collaboration
Prof. Emeritus Frank Paul Calaprice, Princeton University, has been awarded the prestigious Bethe prize for 2023.
“For pioneering work on large-scale ultra-low-background detectors, specifically Borexino, measuring the complete spectroscopy of solar neutrinos, culminating in observation of CNO neutrinos, thus experimentally proving operation of all the nuclear-energy driving reactions of stellar evolution.”
Frank Calaprice earned his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1967 and joined Princeton faculty in 1970. In early 1990’s Frank started working on Borexino with Gianpaolo Bellini, Raju Raghavan, Jay Benziger, and Franz von Feilitzsch. Borexino aimed for the first time to search for sub-MeV solar neutrinos with a massive liquid scintillator at the Gran Sasso Laboratory, Italy. The main goal for Borexino was the measurement of the so-called 7Be solar neutrinos. At that time this was a great challenge. An extreme radio-purity better than 10-16 g/g for uranium and thorium was required. To face this challenge Frank and collaborators designed and built the Counting Test Facility (CTF). The CTF was a 4-ton liquid scintillator detector viewed by 100 8-inch photomultipliers inside a muon veto made of 1 kton of high purity water. The CTF was successful and paved the way for Borexino. Construction started in 1998. Borexino used 1 kton of pseudocumene viewed by 2212 8-inch photomultipliers inside a 14 meters in diameter stainless steel vessel. The ultra-high radio-purity 280 tons liquid scintillator was contained by a 125 mm thick nylon vessel. Borexino took data from May 2007 until October 2021. The radio-purity achieved by Borexino was much better than expected at the level of 10-18 g/g. This outstanding achievement allowed for the first time the measurement of sub-MeV solar neutrinos including pep and pp neutrinos besides 7Be, boosting our understanding of the interior of the sun. In 2020, Borexino observed CNO neutrinos. The CNO cycle, predicted by Bethe, makes only about 1% of the energy produced by the sun. Yet, in more massive stars it is the dominant source of energy. For the first time this energy source has been probed experimentally. CNO neutrinos are also a unique probe for the sun’s metallicity. Metallicity is a key input in the theory which describes the sun. Therefore, understanding experimentally the sun’s metallicity is crucial. The first attempt in this direction has been carried out by Borexino with CNO neutrinos.
Frank played a crucial role in the design and construction of the Borexino detector. In addition to much more he was deeply involved in the purification strategy, where he contributed with many important ideas. His role and involvement in the measurement of CNO neutrinos has been crucial. His recognition with a Bethe prize is quite appropriate, considering that Borexino has probed the basis of energy production in the sun through the pp-chain and the CNO cycle. Furthermore, the technology developed in the framework of Borexino is at the root of next-generation experiments which search for rare events, such as dark matter and neutrinoless double beta decay. In the last two decades Frank gave important contributions to direct search for dark matter through DarkSide-50 and SABRE both at the Gran Sasso Laboratory.
Stavros Katsanevas, born in Athens in 1953, died on 27 November 2022. He is known as a tireless proponent of astroparticle physics in all his functions, whether as deputy director of the French IN2P3, director of the APC in Paris or director of the EGO in Pisa. He has promoted the European and global coordination of astroparticle physics for decades and is rightly described as one of the founding fathers of this modern field of research.
Stavros Katsanevas was the initiator of several European scientific projects in the field of astroparticle physics. With the support of the European Commission, he founded ASPERA I+II, followed by the AstroParticle Physics European Consortium (ApPEC), which entered a new era in 2012 under the name APPEC. Stavros was the first Chair of the General Assembly of APPEC from 2012-2014. He has always been an indispensable member, a driving force and a mainstay of all APPEC activities. He played a central role in defining a global strategy of astroparticle physics and its road-mapping. He always paid special attention to interdisciplinary science around astroparticle physics, and to projects combining art and science to engage the public in the history, culture and bright future of science.
Stavros Katsanevas was animated by an inexhaustible desire to contribute to the progress of science by serving, stimulating and enlivening the community. This was a passion for which he lived and from which he let nothing deter him. His participation in APPEC was instrumental in bringing astroparticle physics to the attention of Europe and the world. A physicist and colleague with boundless and inexhaustible enthusiasm and great scientific culture, steeped in philosophy, literature and poetry, a humanist and universalist, Stavros was also a friend to many of us.
With extraordinary courage, Stavros fought his illness for years with such dignity and energy that he seemed invincible. Deep sadness gripped us when we received the news that Stavros left us on 27 November 2022 and that he will now share his inspirations on scientific knowledge elsewhere. But we are sure that he will convince and inspire there as well. APPEC and astroparticle physics owe a lot to Stavros and we ourselves have always felt comfortable and inspired around him. This is a great gift and we will miss him as a colleague and as a friend.
At the Joint ECFA-NuPECC-APPEC (JENA) Seminar in May 2022 in Madrid, both the plenary presentations and the closed session of funding agency representatives revealed that there is an increased need for discussions on the strategy and implementation of European federated computing at future large-scale research facilities. Therefore, APPEC, ECFA and NuPECC decided to organize a European, cross-community workshop on the strategy of computing. Gonzalo Merino, director of the Port d’Informació Científica, is part of the Organizing Team and will explain the implementation and aims of the workshop.
