Research News
Kick-off event in Moscow to herald the German-Russian Science Year, (from left to right): Dr Andrei Fursenko, Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Prof. Dr Helmut Dosch, DESY, with Prof. Dr Mikhail Kovalchuk, Kurchatov Institute Moscow, Prof. Dr Annette Schavan, German Federal Minister of Education and Science, and Prof. Dr Jürgen Mlynek, President of the Helmholtz Association.
News from the Helmholtz Offices in Moscow, Brussels and Beijing
On this special page, we report news from the Helmholtz offices in Brussels, Moscow and Beijing several times a year. Specific focus is on cooperation and partnership ventures of the Helmholtz Association in Russia, China and the EU as well as on select international research policy news.
News from the Moscow Office:
German-Russian Science Year Kick-off Event in Moscow
During an evening reception on 23 May in Moscow to mark the beginning of the German-Russian Science Year 2011/2012, the Helmholtz Association presented research issues which are to promote the cooperation with Russian research institutions. Both the German Federal Minister for Research, Annette Schavan, and the Russian Federation's Minister of Education and Science Andrei Fursenko attended the kick-off event. Furthermore, a workshop including top echelons from science was held under participation of leading researchers from eight Helmholtz Centres and the Kurchatov Institute.
The Helmholtz Association maintains numerous German-Russian cooperation projects. Together with the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFFI), it funds Helmholtz Russia Joint Research Groups with 130,000 Euro per year over a period of three years. FAIR is a transnational research project featuring Russia and Germany in leading roles. Russian partners likewise participate in building the European XFEL at the Helmholtz Centre DESY. Another focal point of research includes infection diseases such as tuberculosis, which can quickly spread across the entire world. German-Russian cooperation projects can be found in all six research fields of the Helmholtz Association.
During the German-Russian workshop, representatives from the Helmholtz Centre DESY and from the Kurchatov Institute signed a declaration of intent to establish a joint institute: The Ioffe Röntgen Institute is intended to become a world-wide leading institution for the development and utilisation of large-scale research infrastructures for material sciences research.
More information:
Commentary by Dr Martin Sandhop, Head of the Helmholtz Office in Moscow
The Helmholtz Association nailed its colours to the mast with the beginning of the German-Russian Year of Education, Science and Innovation 2011/2012. The celebratory evening reception hosted by the president of the Helmholtz Association on 23 May 2011 and the Association's joint workshop with the National Research Institute "Kurchatov Institute" are strong contributions to the Science Year with a high degree of visibility both for the German and the Russian side.
During the reception, Jürgen Mlynek welcomed some 300 German, Russian and international high profile guests from research, politics and commerce. Mlynek emphasised the great significance Russia and Russian research institutions have for the Helmholtz Association. For decades already, Helmholtz centres cooperate with Russian partners. Naming a few exemplary key issues in the future cooperation, Jürgen Mlynek highlighted climate research, nanotechnologies and the development of new materials, nuclear safety research and health research.
Many of these subject issues were subsequently taken up during the workshop with the Kurchatov Institute including the exchanging of cooperation ideas. The bilateral Science Year is an occasion for the Helmholtz Association to look forward and to intensify the cooperation with Russia.
News from the Helmholtz Office Brussels
OpenAIRE: Free Access to EU Projects Publications
The project OpenAIRE commissioned by the EU Commission officially started at the end of 2010. The main purposes of OpenAIRE include advisory services for scientists and the monitoring of the implementation of the Open Access requirement for EU funded research projects in the context of the "EU Open Access Pilot" and of the Open Access guidelines of the European Research Council (ERC).
Authors from EU projects in some of the fields of the Seventh Framework Programme for research and technological development (FP7: Health, Energy, Environment, Information and Communication Technologies, Research Infrastructures, Social Sciences, Economics, Humanities and Science in Society) as well as from projects receiving funding from the ERC are urged to deposit a digital copy of their publication (final version of the manuscript or published version) in an online repository and to provide an Open Access publication. By this, publications from EU funded projects are to be collected via the web portal of OpenAIRE and are to be made freely accessible through the internet. The experience gathered in this pilot project will be assessed by the EU Commission and serve as a basis of future European Open Access activities.
The Helmholtz Association promotes Open Access, the free access to scientific publications in the internet facilitating the immediate discussion of up-to-date results in expert circles and increasing the visibility of research in the public sphere. Together with other scientific institutions and fund-granting organisations striving for maximising the effective use of their funds, the Association works to develop strategies for implementation of this goal. Within the Helmholtz Association itself, the greater number of the 17 Helmholtz centres already feature institutional repositories for secondary publication of any published material. In the creation of these publication databases, the libraries receive support through the Helmholtz Open Access Project providing information and advisory services. At present, attention is being paid to making the databases "OpenAIRE compatible", that is, to allowing for an unequivocal allocation of publications to the respective funded project out of which they originated.
Open Access contact persons in the various centres provide answers to questions regarding OpenAIRE. The Brussels Office of the Helmholtz Association furthermore feels the need for a differentiated discussion of the topic between, amongst others, EU consultants, librarians and scientists.
Dr Paul Schultze-Motel, Helmholtz Association Open Access Project
More information:
Questions regarding the "EU Open Access Pilot":www.helmholtz.de/eu-oa-pilot
ERC Open Access Guidelines:www.helmholtz.de/oa-richtlinien-erc
Helmholtz Open Access Project: oa.helmholtz.de
Brussels Office:www.helmholtz.de/bruessel
News from the Helmholtz Office Beijing
SIMBOX: German-Chinese Space Travel Experiment Can Start in October
The German-Chinese space travel project "SIMBOX" can be launched on 30 October as the final rehearsal was successfully completed. The DLR and the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) simulated the operating sequence of the scientific mission from preparing the biological specimens over experiments in the SIMBOX incubator aboard the Chinese spaceship Shenzhou ("Divine Ship") to benchmark experiments on ground.
The DLR's space management heads the project and, in the context of the National Space Programme, finances the SIMBOX facility (heating cabinet and centrifuge) including the more than 100 experimental cabinets as well as the six experiments conducted by German research institutions. The Chinese party, that is, the CMSEO carries the overall responsibility for the mission.
