[MODEST] MODEST as RTN

[Ralf Klessen]

Dear members of the MODEST community:

Let me follow up on Rainers e-mail. During the weeks since our
Amsterdam meeting, we have followed the discussions by e-mail and
behind the scenes about the pro's and con's of proposing MODEST as
Research Training Network (RTN) to the European Commission in the
6. Framework Program (FP6). We need to come a concensus on that issue
soon, in order to meet the November 2003 deadline for submission
without too much pressure.

If we agree to give it a try, we should have a one to two day meeting
somewhen in May to discuss the proposal and design its general
outline. The time until May should give us sufficient time to think
about possible projects, and the time from May to November should
allow us to write up the proposal and iterate it several times. I
propose to have the meeting here in Potsdam, at the AIP, but other
suggestions are more than welcome.

The difficulty will be to find a date when all (or at least most of)
us who are interested can come. From Rainers and my side, Monday or
Tuesday works best, and every week in May is fine. Please give me your
feedback, and tell me what dates would work best for you. I will then
try to find the best date.

Rainer listed possible nodes of the MODEST-RTN in his e-mail. This is
a suggestion. Please tell us who else may be interested in
participating in a MODEST-RTN. Note that in FP6 (unlike FP5) also
non-European groups can in principle, participate (not in terms of
possitions, but in terms of money for mutual visits), but note also,
that the number of nodes should not be much larger than 10 (in FP5 the
optimum number is ~7).

Our current list of interested institutions is:
 
 Warsaw      (M.Giersz)
 
 Amsterdam   (S.Portegies-Zwart, O.Pols)

 Brussels    (D. Vanbeveren)
 
 Padova      (G. Piotto)

 Edinburgh   (D.Heggie)
 Leicester   (M.Davies)
 Cambridge   (G. Gilmore, S.Aarseth)
 
 Heidelberg  (R.Spurzem, M.Freitag)
 Potsdam     (R. Klessen, H.Zinnecker)
 
 Lausanne    (J.C. Mermilliod, G.Meylan)
 
 Strasbourg  (C.Boily)
 

Looking forward to your comments and suggestions.
With best regards,

Ralf


P.S.: For further reference. The web address of FP6:

FP6 in general...
 http://www.cordis.lu/fp6/home.html

Marie Curie actions ...

http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/fp6/mariecurie-actions/action/training_en.html

http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/fp6/mariecurie-actions/indexswf_en.html


P.P.S.: Please excuse if you should receive this e-mail twice.
We are currently trying to set up an separate e-mail list of 
RTN-interested persons.


---------------------------------------------------------------
Ralf Klessen
AIP -- Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam
An der Sternwarte 16                    Tel: +49 (331) 7499-428
D-14482 Potsdam                         Fax: +49 (331) 7499-429
Germany                                 E-Mail: rklessen at aip.de
                                        http://www.aip.de/~ralf