Letter of Intent submission deadline: May 15, 2025

Proposal submission deadline: July 1, 2025

The European Solar Physics Division (ESPD) of the European Physical Society (EPS) solicits proposals by European groups to host the 18th European Solar Physics Meeting (ESPM-18) in the 2027 August 30 – September 17 timeframe. ESPMs include all aspects of heliophysics with an emphasis on solar physics and solar-terrestrial relations and typically attract more than 200 participants*. ESPMs are organized every three years, each time in a different European location, attracting significant visibility for the places and/or the group(s) that host them. The last ESPMs took place in Turin, Italy (2024); online (2021); Budapest, Hungary (2017); Dublin, Ireland (2014); Rhodes, Greece (2011); Freiburg, Germany (2008); Leuven, Belgium (2005); and Prague, The Czech Republic (2002). The Scientific Organizing Committee of ESPMs is the ESPD Board, elected every three years.

Interested groups are invited to send a single-page Letter of Intent (LoI) to submit a proposal to the ESPD President, Patrick Antolin, at patrick.antolin@northumbria.ac.uk. The deadline of the LoI submission is May 15, 2025. The ESPD Board will review the LoIs and the applicants of selected LoIs will be invited during the second half of May 2025 to submit a full proposal to host ESPM-18 (with a typical size of 2-3 pages) by July 1, 2025. The final selection will be made by the end of summer 2025, to allow the selected group of organizers two full years of preparation.

The successful proposal should state the envisioned meeting location with a brief cultural history of the area and emphasize (1) the ease of access for international participants, (2) availability and cost of different lodging options at close proximity to the meeting location or convenient ground transportation to the meeting location, (3) a description of the venue** including the space allocated for poster presentation*** and (4) suggested registration fee, with stated inclusions and breakdown. Proposed initiatives or references to the likelihood of obtaining funding support for students, early career post-docs, and/or colleagues from less privileged countries is strongly encouraged and will be taken into account during selection. The ESPD Board is also committed to assisting the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) in gathering support funds. The LOC would also have access to services provided by the EPS Conference Department, such as website management, registration handling, logistical coordination, social event planning, and on-site support. Proposals originating from groups who haven’t recently hosted the ESPM will be given higher consideration.

For more information and questions/clarifications, please contact the ESPD President, Patrick Antolin (patrick.antolin@northumbria.ac.uk) or the Chair of the Conference Committee, Stanislav Gunár (stanislav.gunar@asu.cas.cz).

Notes:

* In ESPM-16 the total number of participants was 280; In ESPM-17, it was 360;

**the ESPD Board is not in favour of parallel sessions;

***Space needed for about 150 posters per day.

Announcement of a Special Issue of Advances in Space Research on

Recent Progress in the Physics of the Sun and Heliosphere

Manuscripts are solicited for a special topical issue of Advances in Space Research (ASR) entitled “Recent Progress in the Physics of the Sun and Heliosphere”.

With the recent launch of the Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter, the solar physics community has entered a new era of solar physics research. The observations within the inner heliosphere from a few previously inaccessible locations are not only complementing the observation from 1 AU, but bring in new, sometimes puzzling unexpected results. The wealth of the new generation of space and ground-based observational facilities coupled with the state-of-the-art modelling continuously advances and deepens our understanding of basic physical processes operating in the solar interior, solar atmosphere and solar wind, and contributes to uncovering the solar-terrestrial relations, inspiring new theoretical insights and forecasting space weather and space climate. 

The main objective of this special issue is to highlight and review recent progress achieved in different areas of Solar Physics. While we expect many contributions from participants of the 16th European Solar Physics Meeting (ESPM-16, https://indico.ict.inaf.it/event/794/) organized in September 2021, we welcome original and high-quality relevant manuscripts from all scientists working on solar and heliospheric physics.  All submissions must be original papers that meet the quality and peer-review standards of Advances in Space Research.

Topics to be considered include:

1.  Solar Interior, Dynamo, Large-Scale Flows and the Solar Cycle

2. The Solar Atmosphere: Heating, Dynamics and Coupling

3. Fundamental Plasma Processes in the Solar Atmosphere: Magnetic Reconnection, Waves, Emission, Particle Acceleration

4.  From Radio to Gamma Rays: Near-Sun Manifestations and Triggering of Solar Flares and Coronal Mass Ejections

5. Solar-Terrestrial Relations, Solar wind, Space Weather and Space climate 

The contributions to the special issue will not focus on a particular area of solar physics.  Instead we plan to have a wide distribution of research papers that will address the above areas, as well as the coupling between them.

Papers must be submitted electronically to https://www.editorialmanager.com/AISR.  To ensure that all manuscripts are correctly identified for inclusion into the special issue, authors must select “Special Issue: Progress in solar physics” when they reach the "Article Type" step in the submission process.  Submitted papers must be written in English and should include full affiliation postal addresses for all authors. The general format for submission of papers can be found on the ASR Elsevier web site at 

http://www.journals.elsevier.com/advances-in-space-research/

Only full-length papers will be considered for publication, subject to peer review by a minimum of two reviewers. There are no page limits although the length of the paper should be appropriate to the scientific material being presented, relevant to the purpose of the Special Issue, and should be of good scientific content.  While thedeadline for submissions is 1 April 2022, papers will be published electronically as soon as they are accepted.  The printed issue will be assembled within a reasonable time with late papers being printed in regular issues of ASR. All articles will be typeset at no cost to the author; there is a charge for printing color figures; there is no charge for color figures on the electronic version.

The Guest Editors of this Special Issue are Eduard P. Kontar (Eduard.Kontar@glasgow.ac.uk) and Istvan Ballai (i.ballai@sheffield.ac.uk). Questions can be directed to Dr. Kontar or Dr. Ballai, or to the Co-Editor for Special Issues, Dr. Peggy Ann Shea (sssrc@msn.com).