No 16 – 07/12/11

SGAA/SSAA News No 16 – 07/12/2011
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1. Travel support SSAA – invitation to apply for grants
2. Travel support CSR  – invitation to apply for grants
3. Call for “Astronomy Outreach” projects
4. 42nd Saas-Fee Course (2nd announcement)
“Dynamics of Young Star Clusters and Associations”
5. General Assembly 2011 material on the Web
6. Wishes for 2012
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1. Travel support SSAA – invitation to apply for grants

In 2012 the SSAA (Swiss Society for Astrophysics and Astronomy) will
have some money from the sc|nat available for travel grants.
The SSAA now invites applicants to apply until February 24, 2012
to daniel.schaererunige.ch (Daniel Schaerer, Observatoire de Geneve).
The request should provide the date, place, and the reason for the
travel, as well as the cost to be covered by the SSAA. There are two
types of travel grants:

(a) international collaboration (CHF 6000.-)

Travel money for international collaboration is preferentially given for
travels to meetings where Swiss participation is considered to be
useful, for visits at other institutions (for research projects), and
observing runs. The person should be a SGAA member and an active
researcher in astrophysics.

(b) support for young scientists (CHF 5000.-)

Travel money for young scientists is given preferentially to Ph.D.
students but also young Post-Docs, whereby the money may be used for
observing runs, visits to other institutions, conferences, research
schools etc. In the application it should be clarified in a few words
why this travel is important for the research project of the applicant.
Particularly encouraged to apply are young researchers who are in a
situation where it is not so easy to get the money from other
institutions.
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2. Travel support CSR – invitation to apply for grants

The sc|nat Committee on Space Research (CSR) invites at this time only
applications for support to attend the Alpbach school 2012.
Later in 2012, there will be also a call for CSR grant applications
for space science related travels in general.

The 2011 Alpbach Summer School will focus on
“EXPLORATION OF THE GIANT PLANETS AND THEIR SYSTEMS”.

Students are requested to submit their Alpbach applications online on
the Alpbach website until March 31, 2012. The CSR then receives the
names of the Swiss students and communicates end of April the amount of
CSR support for each student.
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3. Call for “Astronomy Outreach” projects

In 2012, the SSAA offers financial support of up to 9000 CHF for
projects on Astronomy Outreach.

Funding is possible for diverse outreach projects, including support for
exhibitions, the preparation of material for schools, the organisation
of events, and alike. Projects will be funded on a competitive basis.

Please send a brief project description and your budget request
to daniel.schaererunige.ch.

The deadline for the call is: March 31, 2011.
Requests may also be supported outside this call, if funding permits.
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4. 42nd Saas-Fee Course (2nd announcement)
“Dynamics of Young Star Clusters and Associations”

The next Saas-Fee course, “Dynamics of Young Star Clusters and
Associations”, will be held from 25-31 March, 2012, in Villars-
sur-Ollon, Switzerland.

The school will attempt to address such questions as:

1)    How common are star-forming events of varying richness?
2)    What are the dynamical states of these events?
3)    In what sort of star-forming event did the Sun form?
4)    How can we use answers to these questions to constrain
predictive theories of star formation?

These questions will be addressed by the following distinguished
international faculty:

Prof. Cathie Clarke, Institute of Astronomy, U. Cambridge
Prof. Robert Mathieu, Dept. of Astronomy, U. Wisconsin
Dr. Neill Reid, Space Telescope Science Institute

*See the course website* www.astro.phys.ethz.ch/sf2012/
*and register ASAP*

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5. General Assembly 2011 material on the Web

The Minutes of the 2011 General Assembly of the SSAA, held 21 Oct 2011
in Versoix, as well as all the usual reports and presentations are
available on the SSAA website:
http://obswww.unige.ch/SSAA/index.php?page=assemblee-2011&hl=eng
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6. Wishes for 2012

The SSAA committee wishes you a happy and fruitful new year 2012!

We hope that many of you will participate at the upcoming “events”, such as
the Saas-Fee course, and others. We also encourage you to provide your
inputs to this mailing list, and to contact us for any suggestions on
matters concerning the SSAA and all your Swiss colleagues.

We thank the outgoing secretary and treasurer, Thomas Schildknecht and
Werner Schmutz, for all their work and we wish a warm welcome to
Yann Alibert and Georges Meynet as new committee members.

Daniel Schaerer and Michael Meyer

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For more information concerning the SGAA/SSAA, astronomy in
Switzerland, and related topics visit our Website
http://obswww.unige.ch/ssaa.

For any information and messages to be circulated via the
SGAA/SSAA mailing list please e-mail your text to the new secretary
(georges.meynetunige.ch) in plain ASCII. Thank you !

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