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STIINTE and STIMM-2 workshops
Following the success of the workshop Solar-terrestrial interactions from microscale to
global models (STIMM), in September 2005, GPSM organized another two workshops in
June 2007: the 6th Capacity Building Workshop, on Solar-terrestrial interactions:
Instrumentation and techniques (STIINTE), together with the Committee on Space Research
(COSPAR), as well as STIMM-2, a follow-up of STIMM, overlapping with STIINTE.
Detailed information on these events is available in the Workshops section of the GPSM web
site. A report on the STIINTE workshop is provided also in the COSPAR Bulletin (Dudok de
Wit et al., Space Res. Today, 170, 46--49, 2007).
The STIINTE workshop was organized as a summer school dedicated to the analysis of data
from multisatellite space missions, with emphasis on Cluster, and was attended by 24 very
motivated PhD and PostDoc students coming from Central and Eastern Europe. The scientific
program of STIINTE focused on various aspects, including data analysis, instrumentation,
numerical simulation, and physical interpretation. The first week of the workshop consisted
of a series of lectures and associated computer sessions, while during the second week the
students were divided in five teams, that had to address specific problems in magnetospheric
physics. On the last day of the workshop, each team defended its project to a panel of nine
senior scientists, participating at the STIMM-2 meeting. The high performance of all teams
was unanimously recognized by the members of the jury. For some of the teams, the
collaborations established at STIINTE were continued after the workshop and materialized in
presentations at the STAMMS2 Conference (September 2007), 15th Cluster Workshop
(March 2008), and EGU General Assembly (April 2008), as well as at least one published
paper (Mailyan et al., Ann. Geophys., 2008).
The STIMM-2 workshop addressed current problems in the magnetospheric physics,
discussed in splinter sessions on auroral physics, magnetospheric boundaries, solar and
polar wind models, and multi-satellite techniques. Invited review lectures, of potential
interest also for the STIINTE students, were given in two plenary sessions. The workshop
promoted fruitful interactions within the community, helped to strengthen ongoing
collaborations, and provided opportunities to initiate new projects.
The members of GPSM were actively involved in the scientific program of the two
workshops, at STIINTE as lecturers / tutors or students, and at STIMM-2 by giving several
talks. At the same time, the group held the main responsibility in the local organization. One
of the most challenging tasks, and a main achievement, was the setup and maintenance of the
IT infrastructure at the workshops' venue (up in the Carpathian mountains), able to provide
both computing power and a reliable connection to online databases, web based tools, and
mission sites. The success of STIINTE and STIMM-2 contributed later on to the decision to
organize the 19th Cluster workshop in Romania.
19th Cluster workshop
The initiative to organize the 19th Cluster workshop (CW19) in Romania was stimulated by
the M–I coupling work performed under ECSTRA and was first discussed in Uppsala, at the
17th Cluster workshop. On this occasion, it was agreed that CW19 would concentrate on
Multi-point investigations of magnetosphere--ionosphere coupling and aurora. As stated on
the front page of the workshop web site, ``a couple of years ago Cluster started to probe key
regions of the M–I coupling chain''. The workshop was intended to ``offer a broad
perspective on M–I coupling and aurora, to include recent achievements based on both
observational and theoretical / numerical studies''. Considering the scientific program and the
feedback from the participants, this goal was successfully reached, not the least due to the
good collaboration of the ISS / GPSM team with the ESA Cluster team. More details on the
scientific program are included in the Abstracts booklet.
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