WP1
Objectives: Determination of present status of European research funding
relating to ASTROPARTICLE (WP leader: FOM)
Description of work:
Managerial information will be exchanged between the partners.
Instruments :
Two workshops, with up to 40 participants (2 per agency): one at the
beginning and one at the end of the second year. In the first workshop
the agencies will collectively define the criteria of the study and
their expectations to the task leader. The last workshop will hear and
evaluate the final result. Between the first and the last workshop the
major agencies and a few selected representative agencies (e.g. northern
or eastern countries) will organise “administrative open days”
in their headquarters for the members of the consortium (up to 10 such
meetings with up to 16 participants). The administrators will then be
exposed, during 2 days, to the activities of the visited partner organisations.
They will thus get a deep insight into the daily work of the partner
councils. This will include knowledge of programmes, administrative
responsibilities and general procedures in science funding (counselling,
proposals, peer review, grant decision, financing, contracts, follow
up).
Task 1.1: Present status of research processing and funding in astroparticle:
(Task Leader MEC/FECYT, assisted by INFN and SNF)
The administrators’ tasks will be to notify the similarities and
differences between the home and partner organisation, regarding the
general funding philosophy: Which programmes exist? Who can be funded?
Individual researchers or laboratories/organisations? Which persons
or labs? Which disciplines? What are the funding conditions and prerequisites?
Are there any other organisations in the partner’s country funding
the same clientele? If relevant: how can funds from other private or
public sources be matched? The task leader will be responsible that
the required information of his forum summing up the status of the research
funding in ASTROPARTICLE physics in all the participating partner organisations
is collected and processed. Information available on the same subject
from European organisations/schemes like CERN, ESO and ESA will also
be taken into account. An equally important sub-task is the collection
of information on European countries not belonging to the consortium
and non-EU European countries.
Task 1.2: Strategic activities between programs :( Task Leader PPARC
assisted by FOM)
The task leader will be in close contact to the leader of task 1.1.
His/her mission will be to benchmark the results of these tasks and
particularly to identify formal and legal barriers that hinder co-operation,
but also to define the least common denominator. Pan-european indicators
for performance etc. will be compared with available indicators concerning
non-European countries (US, Japan, India, China etc). The experience
of existing bi-national or international astroparticle programmes in
Europe (e.g gravitational antennas VIRGO and GEO, the telescopes HESS
and MAGIC, etc.) will be used in order to find the most suitable forms
of cooperation consistent with the national systems also identify the
national legal and financial barriers that hinder cooperation and the
instalment of transnational observatories. The experience of CERN will
be also analysed carefully.
Milestone: White paper on Astroparticle methodology (scientific content,
evaluation, budget allocation, benchmarking, decision making and follow-up)
and suggestions for possible common procedures in Astroparticle physics.
WP2 Objectives: Definiton of astroparticle
physics roadmap and common actions necessary for the astroparticle ERA
(WP leader: Partner PPARC)
Description of work:
Roadmap Workshops whose bases will be to process the information resulting
from WP1 in order to contribute towards an European Research Area in
Astroparticle Physics. The aim of the Workshops will be to prepare the
realization of specified goals:
• roadmap and areas of common RTD
• formulation of a common evaluation policy
• a posteriori linking of existing infrastructures.
An
important objective is the prototyping of truly generic co-operation
agreements on administration, evaluation and funding of joint programs.
Instruments:
Participants of the thematic Roadmap Workshops to be organised in this
work package will be a core group of administrators, senior scientists
and decision makers responsible for astroparticle physics research in
the research funding organisations co-operating in the network, soliciting
input from other scientists and administrators as well as external management
experts from other national or European bodies like the European Commission,
the ESFRI, ESO, ESA, CERN.
Task 2.1: “A roadmap for ASTROPARTICLE”: (Task Leader Partner
FOM)
An important aim of the series of Workshops (up to 3) starting on the
second half of the first year will be elaborating and releasing a joint
roadmap on infrastructures and R&D necessary and a feasibility analysis
of the ERA-NET and beyond the network’s funding by the European
commission. Central co-ordination activities in this task are to conduct
discussions between the participating representatives in the workshops
in order to reach the envisaged aims, the development of common review
procedures.
Task 2.2: “Formulating comparable evaluation procedures”:
(Task Leader Partner PPARC, assisted by FOM)
An important aim of the series of Workshops starting on the second half
of the first year will be the formulation of comparable evaluation procedures
concerning large infrastructures in Astroparticle Physics.The main aim
of the Workshops will be to elaborate and implement new simple and effective
common administration and reviewing concepts for individual transnational
proposals. Being aware of the difficulties of even a bilateral agreement
to realise, the optimal target is the development of procedures accepted
by all participating research funding agencies. The workshops already
will take into consideration the further integration of other national
research councils not yet participating in the network.
Task 2.3: “A posteriori linking of existing infrastructures”:
(Task Leader Partner BMBF/PTDESY)
Aim of different thematic Workshops (up to six) in the second year will
be to initiate schemes for new joint funding procedures and programmes
in co-operative research concerning existing infrastructures, e. g.
transnational centre to centre co-operation (virtual transnational labs)
and transnational research training groups.
Milestones : Astroparticle physics roadmap
WP3 Objectives: Implementation of new
European-wide procedures for large infrastructures (Work package leader:
Partner INFN)
Description of work:
The task leaders in this work package will be responsible for organising
special programme defining workshops to discuss and to implement the
new transnational procedures developed in WP2. This will be realised
by envisaging and earmarking research fields and funding schemes suitable
for joint programmes and by testing the suitability of the tools by
help of concrete research concepts. ASPERA will provide specific information
on actual possibilities of transnational proposals at each workshop
and will stimulate discussions on the implementation of joint programs.
The work package leader will not only supervise the tasks and co-ordinate
the co-operation of the task leaders, but will most notably be responsible
for the implementation of joint European programs.
Task 3.1: Coordinate common action plan and prepare agreements on common
funding of a large projects: (Task Leader Partner INFN assisted by partner
MEC/FECYT)
Based on the results of WP2, two workshops of administrators and senior
scientists including the direction of participating agencies will prepare
a common action plan for the large infrastructures to be funded in the
coming years. The workshops will also prepare the alignment of part
of the financial resources of the agencies and councils of the consortium.
Task 3.2: Coordinate R&D programs: (Task Leader Partner INFN assisted
by partner MEC/FECYT)
The effort of this task is to identify areas where a common or coordinated
call on specific R&D areas can be launched, and take the steps towards
the implementation of these calls.
Task 3.3: Setting up cooperation agreements on existing infrastructures:
(Task Leader Partner BMBF/PTDESY)
A series of large projects in Europe has developed in parallel: gravitational
antennas VIRGO/GEO, cherenkov telescopes HESS/MAGIC, neutrino telescopes
ANTARES/NEMO/NESTOR, high energy cosmic rays AUGER/EUSO, Dark matter
searches (at least 6 different projects) and double beta decay experiments.
This task will try to establish cooperation agreements between the researchers
of the corresponding projects, so that complementarity more than competition
is put forward, and also establishing unified patterns where this is
possible.
Milestones :
• Common action plan for the funding of new infrastructures
• Alignment of part of the financial resources of the networking
research councils for transnational Astroparticle -based research programs
WP4 Objectives: Consortium common electronic
infrastructures, communication and extension (WP leader: Partner BMBF/PTDESY)
Description of work:
The function of WP4 is to strengthen the “corporate identity”
of the consortium through a common electronic infrastructure, opening
it, at the same time, to other agencies and communicating the achievements
of the field and the consortium itself to the European policy makers,
belonging to national structures or transnational organisms (ESO,CERN,
ESA) and the EU.
The common electronic infrastructure is the object of two tasks:
• The first task, addressed to the agencies members of the consortium
and the corresponding scientists, will establish a common database,
common electronic mailing system, common agenda structure, intranet
facilities etc.
• The second task, opening ASPERA to the world at large, will
establish an internet web site, presenting the findings of the consortium,
job opportunities, open calls for R&D, important press communications,
transeuropean events of ASPERA, access links to all European infrastructures,
where possible helping individual experiments to present uniformly their
data. It will also be a tool for electronic submission and evaluation
of proposals.
The third
and fourth task concern outreach and the extension of the project to
other European agencies not belonging in the network. The outreach task
concerns mainly the relationships of the network with policy makers,
fulfilling mainly the functions of a press office.
Task 4.1: Development of joint electronic communication tools and portals:
(Task Leader Partner (CNRS assisted by SNF)
The function of the planned electronic portal would be threefold, and
it will help
• the archiving and dissemination of all astroparticle related
documents to the researchers
• the follow-up of the progress of projects by European managers
and/or evaluators
• the information on open calls and other opportunities for the
researchers, or for proposal submission
• the creation of a subscription system the restricted use of
the database and email facilities
Task 4.2: Internet-based common information system: (Task Leader Partner
MEC/FECYT, assisted by partner FCT)
A professional website is very important as external presentation to
political decision makers, to the public, to present the results of
the expertise resulting in studies and reports, to enable interested
applicants and other bodies to find out any information about ASPERA,
its programs and its philosophy and even to process proposals and references.
A common administration and evaluation procedure will be made available
electronically to all partners. The joint electronic communication tools
and portals serve as single entry points in order to facilitate the
interchange of information and the dissemination of results and to enable
an effective joint processing of proposals and European programs.
Task 4.3: Public outreach: (Task Leader Partner CERN)
The ASPERA efforts on this theme will be mainly addressed to national
policy makers and ministry officials. The “national open days”
when the network science managers from European agencies to visit each
country one by one will be widely publicised. We intend to invite local
officials, ministers etc. This is a technique used by ECFA (European
Committee for Future Accelerators) and has been an important lever arm
increasing the European-wide participation to common programs. ASPERA
will organize inaugurations, special pan-European celebrations, visits
of infrastructures and launching of satellites for the policy makers.
This has been up to now very efficient instruments, promoting the discipline’s
goals. The task responsible will be the unique entry point for all major
European astroparticle projects, concerning announcements of major events
and press communiqués to national and European institutions,
as well as “global” sites of information (see for instance
interactions.org).
The many reports to be compiled in the frame of ASPERA (see deliverables
list) will serve as data base for anyone interested. Any publication
will be opened for public on the ASPERA web site (see Task 4.2 and 4.3)
which will also contain calls for joint transnational proposals and
programmes, lists of funded projects as well as final reports of their
outcomes, benchmarking studies, statistics, relevant keywords, links
to researchers and national and supranational funding organisations
etc.
Task 4.4: Coordination office: (Task Leader Partner BMBF)
The task leader is responsible for active contacts and for the transfer
of any important information to other non-participating EU member states,
EU candidate countries and other European third countries. He/she is
the contact point for any new potential ASPERA partner and for any national
research council wishing to be associated to the network. He also acts
as sub-coordinator of ASPERA.
Milestones : A fully functional electronic portal
WP5 Objectives: Consortium Management
(WP leader: Partner CNRS)
Description of work: The ERA-NET administration and management task
will be included in this workpackage. The coordinator of ASPERA (CNRS)
will assume the overall responsibility. The task leader of the overall
management task will organize the overall coordination of the ERANET
and the workings of the GB and JS. He will especially coordinate the
timely delivery of the “management deliverables” below:
Nº |
Name |
WP |
Lead |
Nature |
Month |
D5.1 |
Short management report on progress of the coordination |
WP5 |
CNRS |
Report |
January 07 |
D4.1 |
Joint electronic communication tools |
WP4 |
CNRS |
Prototype |
July 07 |
D4.2 |
Professional website |
WP4 |
MEC/FECYT |
Prototype |
July 07 |
D5.2 |
Short management report on progress of the coordination |
WP5 |
CNRS |
Report |
July 07 |
D5.3 |
Detailed management report on progress of the coordination |
WP5 |
CNRS |
Report |
January 08 |
D5.7 |
Audit report |
WP5 |
CNRS |
Report |
January 08 |
D5.4 |
Short management report on progress of the coordination |
WP5 |
CNRS |
Report |
July 08 |
D5.5 |
Short management report on progress of the coordination |
WP5 |
CNRS |
Report |
January 09 |
D5.6 |
Detailed management report on progress of the coordination |
WP5 |
CNRS |
Report |
July 09 |
D5.8 |
Audit report |
WP5 |
CNRS |
Report |
July 09 |