SPANISH RELATIVITY MEETINGS

(E.R.E.)





 

Brief History

Collected and written by J. M. M. Senovilla

    The Spanish Relativity Meetings (Encuentros Relativistas Españoles, E.R.E.) are annual gatherings which take place in some spanish city and to which most spanish relativitists and cosmologists usually attend. The idea is that at least one senior member of each active spanish group working on gravitation and related matters explains the main interests and achievements of his/her group and interacts with other colleagues in a friendly and usually very pleasant atmosphere. These meetings are also an invaluable place where young spanish students can learn the latest developments and train themselves in the english language at the same time that they present their own research progress and results.

    The meetings are held in September by tradition, except in exceptional cases, and are organized by the different research or university groups in succession. So far there have been more than twenty-five meetings (see the full list below), and sometimes they have been held within other frames, such as the Summer School at El Escorial or Santander, or the Scientific Meetings of the Mediterranean Sea (Trobades Científiques de la Mediterrània), among others.

    It all started with a course given by Prof. Lluís Bel at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (where Lluís Mas and his students were at the time) in 1976, where the relativistic spanish people (very few at the time!) got to know each other. In 1976 (just after dictator's death), there were people interested on relativity and gravitation only at Barcelona and Madrid. Following the leadership by Bel, there was a wish to continue the contacts and the collaborations, as well as the meetings where everyone could explain and discuss the going-on work. Thus, there was a first gathering* organized by the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (where Jesús Martín and students were in 1977) and with people from Barcelona, both from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (with Lluís Mas and his students) and from the Universitat de Barcelona (where Ramon Lapiedra and his students were those times). The first editions of the meetings gathered mostly these spanish researchers, who were scarce in number and without much financial support from the institutions at that time. Nevertheless, those pioneers (led essentially by Prof. Lluís Bel and his mentioned collaborators, mainly Ramon Lapiedra, Jesús Martín and Lluís Mas) persevered with the efforts of maintaining alive the meetings and the relativity field in Spain. Thanks to them, the relativistic community grew very much during the 80's and today there are many relatively big relativity groups around the country, and the international connections and collaborations are numerous, fruitful and intense nowadays.

    In this sense, there were two important turning points for the structure of the E.R.E. at the Spanish Relativity Meetings held in Bilbao in 1982 and in Salamanca in 1988. The ERE-82 proceedings were published for the first time, as have been ever since. In ERE-88, the organizers chose a monographic subject of interest and relevance (namely, Gravitational Wave Detection) and split the meeting in two different parts: the first having plenary lectures by international invited speakers and contributions related with the monographic matter; the second following the tradition and containing several workshops in which everyone could present his/her latest work and where the interaction between groups was kept. This pattern was followed by all the organizers of the next meetings until today, and nowadays the Spanish Relativity Meetings are fairly well-known and with a good reputation around the world. Many relativists from most countries have attended some of the latest editions.

    The full list of the E.R.E. editions together with those to come in the near future are given in what follows, including the organizing group and the place where the meeting took place.





 
 
 
ALL E.R.E. MEETINGS
EDITION
ORGANIZER
PLACE
ERE-77*
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid 
Madrid 
ERE-78 
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 
Barcelona 
ERE-79 
Universidad de Granada 
Granada 
ERE-80 
Universidad de Santander 
Santander 
ERE-81 
Universidad de Salamanca 
Salamanca 
ERE-82 
Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea 
Bilbao 
ERE-83 
Universitat de les Illes Balears 
Palma, Mallorca 
ERE-84 
Universidad de Santander 
Santander 
ERE-85 
Universitat de Barcelona 
Maó, Menorca 
ERE-86 
Universitat de València 
València 
ERE-87 
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias 
La Laguna, Tenerife 
ERE-88 
Universidad de Salamanca 
Salamanca 
ERE-89 
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 
Barcelona 
ERE-90 
Universitat de les Illes Balears 
Palma, Mallorca 
ERE-91 
Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea 
Bilbao 
ERE-92 
Universidad Complutense (Madrid) 
El Escorial, Madrid 
ERE-93 
Universidad de Oviedo 
Salas, Asturias 
ERE-94 
Universitat de Barcelona 
Maó, Menorca 
ERE-95 
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias 
La Laguna, Tenerife 
ERE-96 
Universitat de València 
València 
ERE-97 
Universitat de les Illes Balears 
Palma, Mallorca 
ERE-98 
Universidad de Salamanca 
Salamanca 
ERE-99 
Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea 
Bilbao 
ERE-00 
Universidad de Valladolid 
Valladolid 
ERE-01 
U. Complutense y U.Politécnica Madrid 
Madrid 
ERE-02 
Universitat de Barcelona 
Maó, Menorca 

         Spanish Relativity Meeting  ERE-2003 


* This first edition, sometimes called the "zero-th meeting", was not called E.R.E. yet, but everyone recognizes it as the starting point of the E.R.E. series.