The Institute of Radio Astronomy (IRA), whose role is recognized at the international level, is the academic institution where radio astronomy research is traditionally carried out in Italy. We had the pleasure to speak with its director, Luigina Feretti.
What are the main projects currently active at IRA?
For the first time the prestigious Lise Meitner Prize, which is awarded every two years by the Nuclear Physics Division of the European Physics Society (EPS), has been given to an Italian researcher: Paolo Giubellino, director of research and coordinator of the INFN international ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) at CERN in Geneva. Actually, the
"Young Italian Researchers Award" ("Premio Giovani Ricercatori Italiani") is the new prize funded on behalf of the Gruppo2003 per la Ricerca. The issue of the prize is to promote the scientific research in Italy and to draw the public opinion and attention to the importance of the commitment of the new generations in this field, the future of our country. The Award is regarded positively by the President of the italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, which will formalize its membership to the Gruppo2003 at the time of the ceremony.
Each outbreak has some lessons to teach to those involved in health crisis management, especially in terms of risk communication. In fact, any infectious disease can become much more dangerous when supported by wrong or missing information. On the one hand, misinformation can spread far and fast, especially online, often crossing geographic borders before local organisations have ramped up their response to an outbreak. On the other hand, the lack of proper information about, for instance, how people get infected, may slow down efforts to contain the diffusion of the disease.
How is managed the process to set up the calls of proposal in Horizon 2020? A good example of its functioning has been given by the stakeholders consultation, ended in June 2014. The consultation is the first step towards the definition of 2016-17 working program for the Societal Challenge 5, the one dealing with environmental issues. The preliminary
