Speaker
Description
Since our first international conference on Nuclear Photonics in Monterey in 2016, the field has developed with increasing pace. This is mostly due to developments of research infrastructure and ingenious contributions to technology, methodology, and applications made by the community, mostly by enthusiastic early-career researchers working as PhD students or postdocs. The future of Nuclear Photonics will depend on the availability of excellently trained young researchers who can benefit from the achievements made so far and are capable of carrying the field forward beyond the next five to ten years. Excellent research training on the disciplines of Nuclear Photonics in an international environment will secure this vision.
TU Darmstadt and University POLITEHNICA Bucharest have joined forces to establish an International Research Training Group (IRTG) “Nuclear Photonics” [1] addressing the needs for the vigorous development of the next generation of research leaders in the field. It will provide 100 PhD positions at Darmstadt and at Bucharest over the next nine years starting next month. Its program rests on individual highest-level research projects at the infrastructures at TU Darmstadt, GSI, and ELI-NP near Bucharest, or also here at HIγS, flanked by topical lecture courses given by its research trainers or by international guest lecturers, by a variety of international networking experiences, and by further measures for career development.
This contribution will present the IRTG framework and its program. It will also address opportunities beyond the IRTG, potential risks and challenges of the field, and it aims at initiating a discussion on present and future needs or collaborative strategies for excellent research training in Nuclear Photonics.
This activity is supported in part by the German State of Hesse under grant no. LOEWE-Research Cluster “Nukleare Photonik” and by the German Research Foundation (DFG) under grant no. IGK 2891 “Nuclear Photonics”.
[1] N. Pietralla, C.A. Ur et al., “Nuclear Photonics” Funding proposal submitted to DFG and IFA (Romania).
