Square Kilometre Array (SKA): opportunities of the international radio telescope for the 21st century
30 March 2010
Belgium
On 30 and 31 March a strategic international workshop on the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will seek to identify the major economical and societal benefits of large-scale scientific research infrastructure investments.
The SKA is a USD 1 billion+ international project to create a radio telescope incorporating a receiving surface of a million square metres, fifty times larger than the biggest receiving surface now in existence. This huge surface will be composed of many small antennas, divided into a dense inner core array which becomes more diffuse with increasing radius.
The SKA was conceived as a new international project to meet the future needs of radio astronomers. It will be use to address some of the more fundamental questions in contemporary physics and astronomy, including the nature of the first stars in the Universe, the cosmic history of the Universe, the nature of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, theories of gravity and black holes and the origin of cosmic magnetism.
Beside the major scientific value of this project, experts expect large benefits in terms of direct economic and indirect societal impacts, such as boosting technological learning, capacity-building, socio-economic benefit as well as stimulation of market gains.
Organised by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) with the support of INAF (Italian National Institute of Astrophysics), this strategic workshop is aimed at improving the understanding of boundary conditions and exchanging best practices that will positively influence SKA policy.
Speakers at this workshop include the Presidency of INAF and COST, academics from the University of Manchester, Trinity College Dublin, Leiden University and Imperial College London. Mr Adolfo Urso, Italy’s Deputy Minister for Economic Development, will be addressing the closing remarks.
Workshop attendees have been selected amongst industry representatives with experience in large-scale technology projects, Governments’ officials working on research and innovation policy and funding, representatives from leading universities and research institutes, as well as experts working on the SKA projects and precursor activities. About COST:
COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is an intergovernmental European framework for international cooperation of nationally funded research activities. COST creates scientific networks (‘COST Actions’) and enables scientists and industry representatives to collaborate in a wide spectrum of activities in research and technology. The COST office is based in Brussels, and took up the important task of exploring the Science and technology challenges – as well as the indirect societal and business opportunities - offered by SKA. In doing so, COST actively contributes to enable current and future and is an attractive gateway to the European Research Area (ERA) for the global scientific community.
For more information, please visit www.cost.eu.
About INAF:
INAF is the Italian National Astrophysics Institute which runs all the Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Institutes in the country. It is a relatively young Institution being founded in 1999 only but it deepens its roots in the long tradition of Italian astronomy of which Galileo Galilei is the best example. Italian Astronomy really burst in the second half of the 20th century and INAF represents these outcomes in the international scenario. INAF participates to many international facilities such us ESO telescopes, the LBT, the European VLBI.
For more information, please visit www.inaf.it.
The SKA is a USD 1 billion+ international project to create a radio telescope incorporating a receiving surface of a million square metres, fifty times larger than the biggest receiving surface now in existence. This huge surface will be composed of many small antennas, divided into a dense inner core array which becomes more diffuse with increasing radius.
The SKA was conceived as a new international project to meet the future needs of radio astronomers. It will be use to address some of the more fundamental questions in contemporary physics and astronomy, including the nature of the first stars in the Universe, the cosmic history of the Universe, the nature of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, theories of gravity and black holes and the origin of cosmic magnetism.
Beside the major scientific value of this project, experts expect large benefits in terms of direct economic and indirect societal impacts, such as boosting technological learning, capacity-building, socio-economic benefit as well as stimulation of market gains.
Organised by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) with the support of INAF (Italian National Institute of Astrophysics), this strategic workshop is aimed at improving the understanding of boundary conditions and exchanging best practices that will positively influence SKA policy.
Speakers at this workshop include the Presidency of INAF and COST, academics from the University of Manchester, Trinity College Dublin, Leiden University and Imperial College London. Mr Adolfo Urso, Italy’s Deputy Minister for Economic Development, will be addressing the closing remarks.
Workshop attendees have been selected amongst industry representatives with experience in large-scale technology projects, Governments’ officials working on research and innovation policy and funding, representatives from leading universities and research institutes, as well as experts working on the SKA projects and precursor activities. About COST:
COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is an intergovernmental European framework for international cooperation of nationally funded research activities. COST creates scientific networks (‘COST Actions’) and enables scientists and industry representatives to collaborate in a wide spectrum of activities in research and technology. The COST office is based in Brussels, and took up the important task of exploring the Science and technology challenges – as well as the indirect societal and business opportunities - offered by SKA. In doing so, COST actively contributes to enable current and future and is an attractive gateway to the European Research Area (ERA) for the global scientific community.
For more information, please visit www.cost.eu.
About INAF:
INAF is the Italian National Astrophysics Institute which runs all the Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Institutes in the country. It is a relatively young Institution being founded in 1999 only but it deepens its roots in the long tradition of Italian astronomy of which Galileo Galilei is the best example. Italian Astronomy really burst in the second half of the 20th century and INAF represents these outcomes in the international scenario. INAF participates to many international facilities such us ESO telescopes, the LBT, the European VLBI.
For more information, please visit www.inaf.it.