CERN-GREECE WORKING GROUP CONCLUSIONS FROM THE 19 th MEETING HELD ON 30 th SEPTEMBER 2016 1
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS Representation of Greece: M.P. Spilioti, Head of Directorate for International Scientific and Technological Collaboration, General Secretariat for Research and Technology (via video conference) V. Tsoulkas,Directorate for International Scientific and Technological Collaboration, International Organisations Department Responsible for CERN and ESA (via video conference) CERN Management: M. Steinacher Director for Finance and Human Resources CERN Staff: G. Anelli, Knowledge Transfer Group (FP Department) A. Cook, Head of Talent Acquisition Group (HR Department) S. Schmeling, Head of Teachers Programme (IR/ECO) E. Tsesmelis, International Relations (IR/NMS) A. Unnervik, Procurement and Industrial Services Group (FP Department) A. Tsirou, CMS Collaboration (PH Department) P. Charitos, FCC Study office (ATS/DO) Greek Institute Staff: C. Fountas, Professor of Physics, University of Ioannina E.N. Gazis, Professor of Experimental Particle Physics, National Technical University of Athens Apologies: H.E. A.Giannis Michelogianakis, Permanent Representative of the Hellenic Republic to the Office of theunited Nations and Specialised Institutions in Switzerland F. Gianotti, Director-General P. Sphicas, CMS Collaboration, PH Department / CERN and University of Athens T. Lagrange, Head of Finance and Purchasing Department R. Landua, Exhibitions & Global Engagement (IR/ECO) Y. Papaphilippou, Accelerators & Beams Group (BE Department) 2
Welcome, Minutes and Agenda Martin Steinacher, Director for Finance and Human Resources, welcomed all the participants. He thanked them for their involvement in this meeting, very much important for the CERN management and the Greek delegation. The minutes from the 18 th Meeting of the CERN-Greece Working Group were approved without modification. The draft agenda was approved as presented. GREEK CONTRIBUTION STATUS AND COUNCIL RESOLUTION OF 16 JUNE 2016 Costas Fountas reported on the Greek financial contribution to CERN. A payment of 7.8 MCHF was made by Greece to CERN on 1 st of March 2016 (late arrival date at CERN due to capital controls applying to the Greek banking system: 17 March 2016, in the afternoon of the restricted Council session). CERN s Director General, Director for Finance and Human Resources and Emmanuel Tsesmelis visited Athens on 21 April 2016 and met with the Deputy Minister for Research and Innovation Prof. C. Fotakis and the Greek scientific delegate to fix a final plan for the repayment of the outstanding remaining contribution and thepayments of future annual contributions. Greece should pay the first half of its annual contribution by the 10th of February, with the other half by the 10th of June. Finally, the 2.5 MCHF for repaying the debt should arrive by December each year. Additionally, Prof. Fountas mentioned that a second instalment of 4.5 MCHF arrived at CERN in August.An amount of 500 kchf were directed/made payable to cover the contributions to all the LHC experiments for 2014 and partially the 2015 contribution for the non-lhc experiments. Martin Steinacher expressed the acknowledgment of CERN s management to the Greek Delegation for working tough towards this agreement. He referred to the special efforts by Prof. Fountas, the Deputy Ministry Mr. Fotakis and the Greek CERN community to strengthen the position of Greece in CERN and keep Greece as part of the CERN family. CERN-Greek Educational and Training Activities with Greek Universities and HSTs at CERN Evangelos Gazis reported on education and training programmes with Greece (Annex I). He reported on the upcoming National Teacher Programmes for 2016 from all over Greece. A first group of 30 participants visited CERN from 18 to 21 of 3
April and a second group of 40 participants on 21-24 August 2016. The lectures covered a wide spectrum of topics including particle physics, detectors, accelerators, cryogenics, cosmology, medical applications, computing, transfer technology and cloud chamber hands-on lab (in S CooL lab). Prof. Gazis also referred to three news lectures that were added to this years programme by A. Tsirou: a) What does it take to run a detector in a lab? b) What does it take to run a detector in class? c) Electronic boards controlling sensors for the class Since its beginning in 2008, the National High Teachers Programme has trained more than 750 participants from Greece. Next year, there are plans to celebrate a special 10 th anniversary of Greek HSTs training at CERN. Finally, thanks to the help of the Visit Service the teachers had the chance to visit the ATLAS, ALICE and CMS experiments, CCC, SC, Data Center, SM-18 and the Microcosm exhibition. He also pointed out the large geographical spread of the Greek HTS trained during the period 2013-2015 at CERN and the special focus to motivate teachers from remote areas to visit CERN and participate in the training programme. Concerning CERN- Greek training activities (Annex I) Evangelos Gazis reported that 30 MSc. students from the Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineeringwere trained at CERN from 27 to 29 May as part of their MSc. studies in Innovation in Technology and Entrepreneurship. This programme takes place for second year following the training of 32 MSc students from this university. Furthermore, 40 MSc Students from the University of Piraeus had their training at CERN from 29 to 31 May 2016 as part of the Master s Programme International and European Policies in Education, Training and Research. This comes following an agreement that has been signed between CERN and University of Piraeus in October 2015. The training consisted of lectures in physics and engineering topics as well as visits to several facilities at CERN. For this year it was also planned that the students would visit the S Cool Lab. The training is in line with the course syllabus of the two institutes and is considered to be a very useful initiative. For 2017, students with a technological background will also participate in the activities of the S Cool lab. Finally, two further points were raised during the discussion regarding the HSTs training. The first concerns the generous contribution of the Ioannis Latsis Foundation that covered the residence and food for the HSTs group of August. Secondly, it was noted that in August there was only one group formed due to limited participation (only 15 instead of 40); therefore the 15 participants have a priority for the next training period. 4
Prof. Gazis extended a warm thank to CERN s International Relations Directorate and to the Education, Communications and Outreach (ECO) group for their generous and various support. INDUSTRIAL PROCUREMENT Anders Unnervik reviewed the overall status of the co-operation between CERN andgreek industries (Annex II). Mr. Unnervik summarized the provisional industrial return from the years 2010 to 2015 Year-to-Date, YTD). The figures show that during this period the industrial supplies peaked in 2012 with an industrial return ratio of 0.60 and has declined considerablyto 0.24 in 2015 YTD with a low in 2014. Regarding 2016, the figures are still low but as the year is still ahead there is a hope that numbers will improve. The situation is better with reference to the industrial services that have significantly improved in the course of the last five years. An industrial return ratio peak of 0.24 was reached in 2015. These numbers continue to indicate that further efforts are required to improve the industrial returns to Greece, both for supplies and services. In addition CERN has established a group to review procurement rules that could possibly introduce some changes to help Member States with a poor balance to increase the industrial return. Mr. Unnervik also presented a list of CERN suppliers with the highest turnover in 2015. The five principle suppliers from Greece in 2015 (all with above 100 kchf contracts) are DCS Data Conversion Service, Morfi Molds Ltd, TEMMA S.A., Rentron Electronics and Electromech. He also referred to a contract with Intracom for Computer Change in collaboration with a Swedish company as well as Spanos for furniture. He also presented a breakdown of supplies by activity type. For the period 2010-2014, the main activities that firms from Greece have been involved in are electrical engineering & energy; electronics; computer systems & communications; mechanical structures; particle detectors and miscellaneous (e.g. furniture, publications etc.). In 2012 the big part of contracts concern power cables and electronics. Electronics are important in 2013 and have a significant contribution in 2014, 2015. Finally, one notes that mechanical structures become important in 2015. Mr. Tsoulkas commented on the importance of increasing the industrial return and discussed his previous experience with ESA where he served as Greek representative working closely with many high-tech companies. Mr. Tsoulkas named a number of companies working in various areas that may be relevant for CERN and expressed his interest to work further with CERN and the ILOs to increase Greece s industrial return. 5
In a short response, Mr. Unnervik clarified some differences between ESA s and CERN s procurements rules due to the nature of the two organizations. CERN opts for a best-effort approach while also asking for bids that guarantee the best quality at the lowest possible fares. Martin Steinacher suggested to follow up the discussion with the ILOs. PROGRESS ON GREEK ILO ACTIVITES Evangelos Gazis reported on the progress in activities of the Greek Industrial LiaisonOfficer (ILO) team (Annex I). The National Technical University of Athens has signed two addenda with CERN providing two engineering experts on BE and TE departments. Moreover, special efforts to get contracts for medium and large size companies cooperating with Universities for HL-LHC (Mold, METKA, Kokkinos). The CERN Business Incubator Centre in Thessaloniki has started activities updating the local industries via workshops presenting the various technologies and future opportunities. Greek ILOs in collaboration with the CERN BIC management and local commercial and Industrial Chambers have organized similar workshops in other big cities and the aim is to span all Greek regions. The first workshop addressing mainly the region of Central Macedonia took place on 14 January 2016 in collaboration with the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and CERN s Knowledge Transfer office (including as speakers E.Gazis, D.Samsonidis, G.Assimopoulos). A second event was held was held in partnership with the Department of Electrical & Computing Engineering of the Democritus University of Thrace (speakers included E.Gazis, G Assimopoulos, P.Soukoulias) to cover the region of East Macedonia & Thrace. A third workshop with the participation of C. Fountas, M. Chavouzis, P. Soukoulias, covered the region of Epirus and was organized with the University of Ioannina (UoI) and the Science and Technology Park of Epirus. Finally, Prof. Gazis gave a talk in Lamia in an event co-organized by the University of Central Greece & Technical Chamber of Greece. More events will follow in Larisa, Volos, Patras, Tripoli and Herakleion within the next months. Evangelos Gazis emphasized that they are planning to continue working all over Greece. The need to take into account the industrial landscape in Greece was discussed and a systematic approach has to be adopted in order to ensure equal dissemination across Greece. The new political leadership of the Ministry of Education has put a lot of emphasis and hope to continue working closely with ILOs at CERN in the future. HUMAN RESOURCES 6
Anna Cook on behalf of Ingrid Haug presented an update on Greek recruitment at CERN (Annex III). The current status of Greek nationals at CERN is the following (with the overall percentage of Greek nationals to the total of CERN given in parentheses): 37 Technical Students (20%), 13 Doctoral Students (6%), 8 Administrative Students (25%), 40 Fellows (6%), 34 Staff Members (1.4%), 4 Scientific & Corresponding Associates (8%), 10 Project Associates (6%), and 226 Users/Visiting Scientists/Collaboration Associates. Since April 2016, three new GR Staff has been employed by CERN all on Grade 6. Anna Cook reviewed the latest figures for Technical/Administrative Students, Doctoral Students and Fellow applications showing Greece s very strong position in terms of selected applicants in all of these categories. She also reported that between 2-8% of all applications are coming from Greece reflecting a steady increase since 2010. NEW CAPACITY-BUILDING PROGRAMME WITH GREECE Emmanuel Tsesmelis presented a proposal from CERN for setting up a collaboration with universities in Greece in the domain of advanced IT engineering, such as in software, hardware, controls etc. The programme would bring recent graduates from Greek universities to CERN as associated members of personnel for up to three years. He emphasized that CERN becomes more and more attractive to young people in Greece and ideally they should get engaged in different technical activities. The CERN accelerator controls group and the administrative information services group have shown initial interest in this programme. Contacts will be established with the Rectors of universities in Greece since signing an MoU with Greek Universities could facilitate things and is the next step towards a firm educational cooperation. NEXT MEETING The next meeting of the CERN-Greece Working Group will be held on Tuesday 5 September 2017from 10:00 to 11:30. 7
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