Switzerland excluded from European planning of research infrastructures
The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) was created to support a coherent and strategy-oriented approach to policy making in the area of major research infrastructures in Europe. As Switzerland is not associated with Horizon Europe, the EU framework programme for research and innovation, the Swiss ESFRI delegation and Swiss experts in the Strategic Working Groups (SWG) will no longer be invited to participate in ESFRI meetings and activities. According to Hans Rudolf Ott, Chairperson of the Round Table on Swiss Representation in International Organisations and Research Infrastructures (RoTIORI), organised by the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT), Switzerland has lost an important means of contributing to the shaping of the European research landscape as a result of this decision, particularly in the field of major infrastructures. RoTIORI now expects pragmatic solutions to be developed in the interest of the European research landscape.
Image: ESFRI
Empowering female students and junior colleagues
Corinne Charbonnel is a full professor of astrophysics at the University of Geneva. This is not a matter of course, as she was only the second woman ever to be appointed to a professorship at the Astronomy Department of the University of Geneva. The 57-year-old scientist is a strong advocate for young female researchers, among other things as a mentor.
Image: Privat
Illuminating interactions
X-rays - electromagnetic rays with short wavelengths - play a prominent role in the study of mole-cules. An expert in this field is Prof. Antonia Neels, a scientist at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa). Her research group at the Empa sites in Dübendorf and St. Gallen is particularly concerned with applications in biomedicine and space travel.
Image: Privat
Our central star in view
"I have a liking for the sun." This is the motto Louise Harra uses to headline her Twitter account. Indeed, the Northern Irish-born astrophysicist has devoted her entire research life to our central star. For three years now, the astrophysicist has been the head of the 'Physical-Meteorological Observatory Davos' (PMOD), a research institution rich in tradition for the exploration of the sun and the exact determination of solar radiation.
Image: Privat
At home in a two-dimensional world
Female scientists have been gaining more and more ground in the Department of Physics at the Uni-versity of Basel in recent years. One of them is Märta Tschudin. As part of her doctoral thesis at the Quantum Sensing Lab, she is researching the extremely weak magnetic fields of ultra-thin layers of material that consist of only a single atomic layer.
Image: Privat
