PEOPLE
FROM A TOOL FOR FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS TO A COLLECTIVE ASSET: CONCEPTION, DEVELOPMENT AND SHARING OF A TECHNOLOGY
Interview with Mariangela Cestelli Guidi, coordinator of the INFN National Technology Transfer Committee
From medicine to cultural heritage and environmental protection: knowledge and technological transfer, KTT, from the world of research to society is an activity with a wide and recognized impact, which is now considered fundamental, so much so that it is institutionally recognized within the Third Mission of Research Institutions and Universities, even for evaluation purposes. The INFN, which has always dedicated attention and commitment to KTT initiatives, has over the years prepared and implemented an increasingly structured strategy, which is based above all on the exploitation of innovative ideas and techniques born in the field of basic research, and which aims to facilitate and catalyze processes of sharing with society, understood both as the business world and as any context that could benefit from applications. This process ensures that new technologies are translated into goods and services that can be used by the community. Part of INFN's strategy is also clearly to build tools for internal evaluation and monitoring of KTT activities and products. To implement its strategy, the INFN has an ad hoc organization covering administrative-legal and scientific-technological aspects, coordinated by the National Technology Transfer Committee (NTTC), supported operationally by the Technology Transfer Service (TTS), which is in charge of the management and support aspects for researchers. We spoke about the initiatives and opportunities born in the field of technology transfer with Mariangela Cestelli Guidi, a researcher at the INFN Frascati National Laboratories, who has been coordinating the work of INFN NTTC since 2022 ...
What is the contribution that basic research can bring to society, in terms of the business and production world, and to the country?
Large experiments designed and built to answer questions in fundamental physics have a very high level of frontier technology. One of the challenges we face today, alongside that of advancing knowledge, is to bring these technologies out of the realm of research so that the benefit for society also translates into competitive growth for the country.NEWS
INSTITUTIONS
MINISTER OF UNIVERSITY AND RESEARCH ANNAMARIA BERNINI VISITED CERN
On February 27, Minister of University and Research Anna Maria Bernini visited CERN, the world's largest and most important particle physics laboratory, where the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012, only the latest of the many historic scientific achievements made here, and where there is a lot of Italy, thanks to the work of the many and many compatriots, researchers, engineers, technicians, who come from Italian universities and INFN, which coordinates Italy's participation in the great European center.
INSTITUTIONS
ET: MINISTER ANNA MARIA BERNINI VISITS SOS ENATTOS FACILITIES
On March 20, Minister of University and Research Anna Maria Bernini paid a visit to the former Sos Enattos mine in the Nuoro area of Sardinia, where she was greeted by a large and warm participation of the local community, with representatives from institutions, civil society and staff of the mine candidate to host the Einstein Telescope science project.
INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS
EINSTEIN TELESCOPE SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATION SPOKESPERSONS ELECTED
Michele Punturo, a researcher at INFN Perugia division, and Harald Lück, a researcher at the Institute for Gravitational Physics of Leibniz University Hannover and the Max Planck Society, will serve as coordinator and vice-coordinator, respectively, of the Einstein Telescope (ET) Scientific Collaboration.
RESEARCH
THE BRIGHTEST GAMMA RAY BURST OF ALL TIMES
Several space telescopes orbiting Earth and probes operating in different areas of the Solar System revealed a strong pulse of very high-energy radiation, followed by a prolonged emission across the electromagnetic spectrum, 9 october 2022.
TECHNOLOGIES
HL-LHC: HIGH-ORDER CORRECTOR MAGNETS ARRIVED AT CERNE
The high-order corrector magnets (HOCMs) for the High-Luminosity LHC project, which aims to enhance the Large Hadron Collider, scheduled to start operating in 2029, have been delivered to CERN. The HOCMs are the first devices of the future machine to be produced and will be crucial for increasing the LHC's performance: they will provide the necessary magnetic field corrections for the magnets responsible for focusing and separating the proton beams before and after their interactions in the ATLAS and CMS experiments.
RESEARCH
XENONNT: FIRST RESULTS ON WIMP RESEARCH PRESENTED
New results of XENONnT, the latest detector of the XENON project dedicated to the direct search for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), particles that could make up dark matter, were presented in a seminar held on March 22 at the INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratories.
INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS
IN WASHINGTON HAS BEEN HELD THE BILATERAL ITALY-USA MEETING ON FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICSA
On March 9th and 10th, a series of bilateral meetings between Italy and the United States were held in Washington. The discussions focused on fundamental physics research topics, perspectives, and projects, that see the two countries engaged in a joint effort through important scientific collaborations.
INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS
ITALY-ARGENTINA: FROM ASTROPARTICLES TO CANCER THERAPY, INFN AND CNEA SIGN NEW RESEARCH AGREEMENT
The study of astroparticles and research in cancer therapy are the focus of two specific agreements signed on March 7 in Buenos Aires by Adriana Cristina Serquis, president of CNEA, the Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica, and Antonio Zoccoli, president of INFN.
AWARDS
CERN: TWO ITALIAN INFN RESEARCHERS RECEIVE THE ATLAS PRIZE FOR THE BEST PHD THESES
Two Italian researchers have been awarded the ATLAS Thesis Award 2022, an award that recognizes the best doctoral theses produced in the past year by doctoral students from institutes around the world collaborating on the ATLAS experiment at CERN, one of the four large experiments at the LHC accelerator, which together with the CMS experiment was the protagonist in the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012.
NRRP
TOWARDS A NEW APPLICATION OF PLASMA ACCELERATORS: THE EUAPS PROJECT GETS STARTED
The kick-off meeting of EuAPS (EuPRAXIA Advanced Photon Sources), one of the projects of national interest selected under the PNRR, was held on February 28 at the INFN headquarters, with INFN involved as lead partner through its Frascati National Laboratories.
FOCUS
TERABIT, THE DATA HIGHWAY FOR ITALIAN RESEARCH
On 14 March 2023, a new project was launched in Italy: TeRABIT (Terabit Network for Research and Academic Big Data in ITaly). Supported by the EU funds of Italy’s Recovery and Resilience plan, the project aims to build by 2025 a next-generation integrated computing and network infrastructure to improve collaboration and information exchange among Italian scientific communities. The project is managed by INFN, with OGS (Italian Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics), CINECA and GARR, the Italian National Research and Educatoin Network. The project’s goal is to build a high-performance integrated computing and network infrastructure and make it available to scientific communities across the country, eliminating disparities in access to high-performance computing and increasing opportunities for Italian researchers to collaborate and compete at the highest level in Europe and around the world ...
TAKE PART IN
INFN AT ROME SCIENCE FESTIVAL 2023
From April 18 to 23, the Rome Science Festival is back, focusing on the theme "Imaginaries." Hosted by Auditorium Parco della Musica, the Festival proposes to its audience a rich program of events and activities for schools and families. INFN will be involved in the Festival from the very first day, organizing the inaugural event that will feature the architect Massimiliano Fuksas and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Giorgio Parisi talking about the relationship between art and science for secondary school students. The following day the Sala Petrassi stage will feature music, voices and digital art in a conference show dedicated to supercomputing and artificial intelligence and their use in fundamental research and applications. Activities for children and families, meanwhile, will focus on elementary particles, the history of the universe and the artistic representation of scientific ideas for the youngest children. All the events will be held in Italian. ...
INFORMATION AND CONTACT
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Cover image: Image of the gamma-ray burst discovered on October 9, 2022
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