The RBI-T-WINNING project is granted to the Division of Theoretical Physics (DTP) at Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI, Croatia) – Coordinator beneficiary – for the duration 01/02/2016 to 31/01/2019. The project provides complementary funding for theoretical physics, with the aim of raising the research profile to that of excellent institutions. This aim is pursued by supporting strong links with leading European research institutions - in particular with the partner institutions – Beneficiaries - SISSA (Italy), Laboratoire de Physique Theorique d'Orsay (LPT) at CNRS (France), Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) München (Germany) and Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) at UCPH (Denmark). The set of measures include staff exchanges, training, conferences, summer schools, dissemination and outreach activities for impact on the local community.
The research topics in theoretical physics at DTP are broad, from understanding the basic constituents of the Universe, to the study of new materials and complex systems. In recent years research was increasingly suffering from a strong limitation of resources. DTP strived to preserve the level of its scientific output and impact in unfavorable external conditions. The lack of funds caused a significant weakening of contacts with top international institutions, a dramatic absence of PhD students and of good candidates for turnover. As a result of this situation, there is a sensible decrease in the scientific output as well as of attractiveness of DTP for potential top staff candidates.
This RBI-T-WINNING project is ideally placed as remedy. Through it, funding is provided for mobility with top institutions and for attracting top talents. This gives DTP a chance to become an international hub of theoretical physics, where new and topical research questions are addressed also in a multidisciplinary manner, with a positive influence on RBI and thus Croatian policies. The presence of the Twinning project also shows students that high quality research with strong international collaboration can be performed in Croatia. This will reduce the brain drain and impact positively the trend of students graduating in physics. DTP recently renewed its hiring policy, by opening more to foreign candidates, a previous atypical policy that also RBI is starting to implement. DTP has a very realistic potential to significantly enhance its scientific impact, and also to substantially improve the advancement of RBI and its contribution to the Croatian Smart Specialisation strategy.
Specifically, the objectives of the proposed projects are:
Objective 1: To enhance the research capacities and role of RBI in the field of theoretical physics, aiming at bringing the DTP to the level of excellent institutions. This objective is pursued by dedicated knowledge transfer, collaboration support and increased mobility of RBI researchers.
Objective 2: To enhance the capacities of RBI for multidisciplinary applications of theoretical physics, using present knowledge in related theoretical physics directions: particle and astroparticle physics, mathematical physics, statistical physics, and condensed matter.
Objective 3: To contribute to the realization of the Croatian Smart Specialization strategies. RBI has already a very prominent role: the ESIF project O-ZIP (60 MEURO) explicitly approved by the EC in the Croatian Operational Programme 2014-2020; RBI WIDESPREAD ERA Chair project PaRaDeSEC (2.7 MEURO). Through the RBI-T-WINNING project, DTP contributes also to their realization.
