How did the Universe create the chemical elements that make us and everything around us? What do stars tell us about the building blocks of matter? Such fundamental questions require global research initiatives and international networks that can bridge political and cultural divides and provide planet-sized brain power to properly tackle them.
International cooperation
The European Union sees international cooperation as a key element of a required global approach to research and innovation. And COST provides crucial mechanisms and opportunities to identify the right international partners and build trust to work on such long-term global endeavours.
Introducing ChETEC
COST Action ChETEC (CA16117 – Chemical Elements as Tracers of the Evolution of the Cosmos), pronounced ‘Ketek’, is an excellent example of how COST initiatives can sow the seeds of truly global collaboration to tackle fundamental scientific questions. Understanding the evolution of our universe requires inputs and collaboration from a wide range of scientific disciplines from sub-atomic physics to astronomy and computational modelling. And each requires access to innovative instrumentation whether the best telescopes, the largest nuclear accelerators or the most powerful computers: resources that one country on its own cannot possibly hope to provide.
In 2021, ChETEC’s final conference, which was organised both virtually and physically in Lisbon, highlighted the critical importance of international networks in furthering research in these fields. Professor Hendrik Schatz from Michigan State University spoke at the conference and is involved in the continuing international collaboration.
“We Joined ChETEC when it was already up and running,” explains Professor Hendrik Schatz. “The field is special involving a range of disciplines and expertise from nuclear physics to astrophysics and extremely advanced computation models. We model entire galaxies and looking to fold in data from accelerators and telescopes – and this involves intense exchange data across these areas.”
“In tackling these hard problems, international cooperation is vital.”
Prof Hendrik Schatz
Hendrik had been the co-founder of the equivalent US network, the JINA Center for the Evolution of the Elements (JINA-CEE), and the interaction with ChETEC played a key role in obtaining funding from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) to initiate a global network of networks.
“This was exactly what we needed,” says Prof. Schatz. “The NSF funding enabled a formal connection between ChETEC and JINA-CEE. In total there are now nine networks involved in a global collaboration and we are continually looking to expand.”
Global network
The new network is called the International Research Network for Nuclear Astrophysics (IReNA) and was funded under the NSF’s Accelerating Research through International Network-to-Network Collaborations (AccelNet) programme.
“ChETEC being part of the IReNA network clearly demonstrates how funding from both the US and the EU can be combined to immense success and strengthen international cooperation,” says Prof. Schatz. “Another angle is the impact on funding co-operation between funding agencies. Bringing the NSF and COST together has stimulated an ongoing exchange between the EU and NSF on cooperation – all triggered by ChETEC.”
This could translate into joint calls or matching call calendars so that researchers in different continents can synchronize their efforts.
The strong community of expertise and facilities assembled by ChETEC was also key to set-up a starting community for infrastructure integration in the field in Europe, ChETEC INFRA, that is also part of IReNA.
Additional information
View the Action webpage
View the network website