Plattform Mathematik, Astronomie und Physik
The activities of the Platform MAP were successfully pursued in 2023, despite the maternity leave of Anina Steinlin in spring. The second Young Faculty Meeting (YFM) of the Platform MAP took place on 1st September and attracted again some 20 participants at the Generationenhaus in Bern.
Besides the YFM, the main activity was on the relaunch of a monthly portrait series of women in science in the fields of mathematics, astronomy and physics (MAP). After 12 portraits of women researchers in 2021-2022, the new series “Science opens doors” portraits women scientists who have left academia and now use their skills in various jobs at the service of society.
An international highlight was the UK-Switzerland Bilateral Meeting held at the Royal Society in London to promote collaborations between the two countries excluded from Horizon Europe. Whereas a national highlight was the celebration of the physics cabinet of Daniel Bernoulli in the “Stachelschützenhaus”, which became a new Historic Site of the European Physical Society.
Last but not least, the Swiss Quantum Commission started its activities in January 2023 holding monthly meetings and launching by November a first SNSF call for quantum research. The commission is relatively autonomous and its activities are reported separately.
The SCNAT Assembly of Delegate approved the Swiss Neutron Science Society (SNSS) to join the Platform MAP starting in 2024. Philippe Jetzer was then appointed as new SCNAT Executive Board member to succeed to Christophe Rossel in 2024. He will be replaced in 2024 in the MAP Presidium by Louise Harra (PMOD/ETHZ).
After a prolific year 2022, the Platform MAP had no own publication in 2023.
The Platform MAP supports its member societies for their own publications. These are the international journals Astronomy & Astrophysics and “Elemente der Mathematik”, plus three communication tools of member societies: the SPS Communications, SSS-Bulletin, and the SSCr Newsletter.
The Platform MAP supported the organisation by the SPS with the Austrian and French physical societies of a symposium for the 400th birthday of Blaise Pascal (1623-1662). The event hold as part of the joint SPS and ÖPG annual meeting on 4 September 2023 was well attended by nearly 120 listeners.
The Platform MAP also supported the event on 22 September 2023 celebrating the recognition of the “Physikalisches Kabinett” of Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782) in the “Stachelschützenhaus” as a new Historic Site of the European Physical Society (EPS). After historic and scientific talks at the University of Basel, the official plaque was unveiled in front of this old house, which is currently used for clinical virology.
The Platform MAP does not organise an own school, but supports the schools of its member organisations, such as the Saas-Fee Course in astronomy, the CHIPP PhD Winter School alternating with the Zuoz summer school, or the School of Crystallography held at PSI or Zurich.
A UK-Switzerland Bilateral International Meeting (BIM) first foreseen in 2021, finally took place on 15-16 June 2023 at the Royal Society premises in London. The event was a great success in fostering dialogue and collaboration between scientists and research infrastructures on both sides of the Channel. 16 prominent scientists each from Switzerland and the UK presented their work and discussed collaborations in two parallel sessions on “Pandemic Preparedness” and “Net Zero”.
The usual meetings of the Round Table "Swiss Representation in International Organisations and Research Infrastructures" (RoTIORI) was held on 29 August 2023. Besides the usual status reports of the international organisations and collaborations, the long-term funding for research projects related to CERN or space- and ground-based astronomy was discussed, as well as the delay in getting the mandate from SERI to update the community roadmaps for research infrastructures.
The non-association of Switzerland to Horizon Europe remains a worry and led to the exclusion in 2022 of Switzerland from the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI). An SCNAT media release prepared by the RoTIORI was issued about this decision on 4 January 2023 and triggered quite some international attention and support.
The Prix Schläfli 2023 in Astronomy was awarded to Simone Bavera (Uni Geneva) for his PhD work on the properties of merging black holes. The ceremony took place in October during the SSAA General Assembly.
The second MAP Young Faculty Meeting (YFM) was successfully held on 1st September 2023. After a round of presentations of the participants and an SNSF talk on career funding opportunities and transitional measures for ERC Grants, the afternoon was devoted to a workshop on time management animated by a professional coach.
The portraits of women in science in the fields of MAP was restarted in June 2023 with the aim to give more emphasis on the videos rather than on an written article in order to better reach out to young (female) students to motivate them to study mathematics, physics, or astrophysics. The focus of the new series “Science opens doors” is on women scientists who have left academia and now use their skills in various jobs at the service of society.
The Prix de Quervain of the MAP Jungfraujoch commission (SKHFJ) was awarded in 2023 to Martin Kneib, who has employed the latest satellite technology and camera systems to measure over 37’000 ice cliffs.
The Platform MAP supports many projects by member societies for the promotion of young scientists. A dedicated webpage reports PhD prizes, events and other news on the topic, including press releases on Science Olympiads.
Two MAP Plenum meetings with the representatives of the MAP member organisations were held in April and October 2023 in hybrid format. The scientific talks were given by Prof. Kathryn Hess Bellwald (EPFL) on the Topological explorations in neuroscience and by Prof. Marc Janoschek (UZH, PSI) on Neutron science in Switzerland.
The MAP Presidium held three meetings in 2023. Besides the usual activities and decisions, the Presidium continued to discuss the evolution of the SNSF funding (see next section) and the update of the roadmaps of research infrastructures, which should be ready at the end of 2024.
The Platform MAP submitted on 15 March the nomination of a Swiss astrophysicist for the Balzan Prize 2023 on the theme “High resolution images: from planetary to cosmic objects”. This was coordinated with the CSR, the SSAA and the SCFA, as well as the Astronomy department of the University of Geneva.
The Platform MAP coordinated the submission by the SSAA and by CHIPP of statements on the ERI-Dispatch 2025-2028, which was for the first time subject to a public consultation in summer 2023.
The Platform MAP discussions on issues related to the SNSF funding continued in 2023. The suppression by 2025 of the R’Equip funding as announced by SNSF on 7 February was discussed in the MAP Plenum of March. The SCNAT President expressed in a letter on 28 April the community worries to the presidents, directors or rectors of the 12 institutions in Switzerland benefitting the most of R’Equip and offered SCNAT support for a possible common action. A week later, swissuniversities wrote a second (after one in July 2022) letter to SNSF with worries concerning the suppression of R’Equip and Doc.CH.
The MAP Plenum of October addressed several other points of concern related to the restructuration of the SNSF (change of statutes, new composition of the Council of foundation), the decrease of the success rate of project funding, as well as some more polemical issues, such as the proposal to exclude the Research Council members from project evaluation and the idea to create Research Impact Bounds as suggested by the SNSF Head of Grant Management in a Nature opinion article of July. As a follow-up, a small group of interested persons was formed and met on 22 December to discuss the main points of concern about SNSF funding.
The Platform MAP created a new thematic portal on Astronomy. The German version was publicly released on 31 January 2023. The French translation followed on 11 December, whereas English and Italian are envisioned for the future.
An exhibition on Math, Art and Philosophy (MAP) under discussion already in 2022 could not materialise in 2023, but there are plans to support a similar project at the University of Geneva on the tight link between the works of the artist M.C. Escher and their mathematical/geometrical roots.
The website of the Platform MAP and the file “Physics and Astronomy” under “SCNAT knowledge” announce most of the events and activities of the Platform and of its member organisations. The SCNAT web portal is attractive for member societies, such that several decide to migrate their website to SCNAT. In 2023, the migration of three important societies, namely the SPS, the SSS and the SSAA was initiated, but not yet completed. The national committee SCOSTEP also included its pages at SCNAT.
The Platform MAP remains a national node of the International Day of Light (IDL, May 16), but the related activities are low.