Inaugural Symposium of JIVE

as a European Research

Infrastructure Consortium

OBJECTIVES

On 12 December 2014, the European Commission has announced its decision to establish JIVE into a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC). JIVE has been in existence as the central facility of the European VLBI Network since December 1993. The new entity, Joint Institute for VLBI ERIC, will strengthen the foundation of VLBI science in Europe and beyond. JIVE will continue to serve as the operational hub of the European VLBI Network in the interests of the European and global scientific community. The EVN enables studies of the broad variety of astrophysical phenomena with the highest angular resolution and sensitivity that include mapping out gravitational lenses, resolving supernova explosions, pinpointing black holes and measuring motions and magnetic fields close to newly born stars. To reach the highest possible resolution and the best possible sensitivity, the EVN in fact includes radio telescopes situated not only in Europe, but also in Asia, South Africa and the Americas.

On 20-21 April 2015, the JIVE European Research Infrastructure Consortium will host an Inaugural Symposium. Its scientific programme lasting for 1.5 days will highlight the achievements of the VLBI science in Europe and beyond over the past decades, and charter the perspectives of VLBI for various science applications. A brief glance at the early days of the EVN and JIVE will be followed by reviews of present VLBI studies of galactic and extragalactic radio sources, applications of VLBI techniques in astrometry, geodesy and space science. Future directions of VLBI will be presented in synergy with the SKA and other developments of radio astronomy in the 21st century.

The Inaugural ceremony for JIVE ERIC will take place after the Symposium science programme during the afternoon of Tuesday 21 April 2015.

This symposium receives contributions from LKBF (the "Leids Kerhoven-Bosscha fonds") and RadioNet3 (RadioNet3 has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 283393).