Authors: Eugenio Nappi, Pablo Garcia Tello, Christophe Rossel, Ophélia Fornari, Luc Bergé – Workgroup 1 – “Reaching Industry”

Organisations and companies of all sizes, in both the public and private sectors, which are involved in physics research or in the development of physics-based technologies, are invited to become EPS Associate Members.

EPS Associate Members (AM) benefit from the unique EPS platform to create partnerships with key stakeholders, industry insiders and decision makers interested in physics, and in addressing societal grand challenges. They have the opportunity to contribute directly to focussed actions involving a broad audience at international scientific conferences, technology trade fairs, and similar events.

EPS plans to improve its collaboration with industrial partners, as they are fundamental for translating basic research into innovation, products, and businesses creating value and impact for society. In the US, more than 50% of physics graduates are used to work in the private sector [1]. In the EU, physics-based industries produce 16% of business revenue, 2/3 being generated in Germany, UK, France, and Italy [2]. Other statistics show that the demand for STEM* professionals and associate professionals is expected to grow by 8% between 2013 and 2025, whilst the average growth forecast for all occupations is 3%.  Employment forecast in STEM-related sectors shows a similar trend: in 2015 it was estimated to rise by 6.5% between 2013 and 2025, although with huge differences across sectors [3]. In parallel, in the past years, Europe has been experiencing a decline in the number of students opting for STEM-related careers [4].

EPS would like to contribute for mitigating this trend. In 2021, the EPS will propose new initiatives serving industrial physicists and for educating students about jobs in industry, with a dedicated staff member at the EPS secretariat. An EPS workgroup - “Reaching Industry” - engages into actions for the recruitment of Associate Members affiliated to physics-based companies and technical universities. It recently drew up a questionnaire that was sent to a panel of enterprises, technical high schools and universities between December 2020 and March 2021. The goal of this questionnaire was to probe their interest in becoming EPS AMs in the coming years.

This questionnaire proposed six questions, requesting the opinion of the respondents on the suitability of the present AM programme and related membership fees to their current needs. It asked also for possible proposals to enhance the EPS current offers, for their interest in joining our Society as AM and for which component of our learned society they would like to work (https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/EPS-AM).

As displayed in the figure 1, the survey was sent to a selection of 62 organisations, composed of 10 regular EPS conference exhibitors, 10 companies proposed by the Industrial Liaison Office of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN/ILO), 12 Multinational and Small & Middle-sized Enterprises, 12 Technical Universities from Western Europe and 18 Technical Institutes - many of them being located in Eastern Europe - proposed by the EPS Young Minds Action Committee.

We received feedbacks from 37% of those who were contacted, and by March 1, 29% returned the questionnaire with complete answers. The distribution of respondents by European nation - even beyond - is detailed in the graphics below. Four of them manifested their interest in joining us within this year as new AM of the EPS. Two others expressed their interest to join next year, due to the pandemic situation.

FIG. 1: Number of companies and technical universities contacted during the EPS AM Survey (Dec. 2020 – March 2021), as a function of the countries hosting their organisation headquarters.
The number of answers (completed or still pending) and of the potentially future AMs are indicated.

What emerged from the survey is a common and repeated interest for the following activities:

• Organisation of meetings or workshops between researchers and industrial representatives
• Access to exhibits of top-level physics conferences at discount rates
• Free access to scientific articles and reviews on topics of interest
• Information on upcoming EPS conferences
• Access to a database of bachelor/master students, PhD students and postdoctoral fellows

for employment or internships

• Job offers available on an online platform.

As a reminder, EPS proposes three levels of Associate Membership (Prestige Sponsor, Sponsor for Societal Challenges, Supporter Associate Member), providing customised packages of benefits, prominently highlighted through multiple communication channels and well acknowledged for their commitment (see https://www.eps.org/page/membership_am):

1.  The Prestige Sponsorship for organisations that wish to sponsor the most prestigious prizes of the Society for outstanding contributions to physics. This category also makes it possible to create new awards tailored to the own field of interest and strategies of the AM.

2.  The Sponsorship for Societal Challenges for organisations that wish to support early career researchers in Europe, promote physics education, equal opportunities and/or physics for development.

3.  The Supporter Associate Membership for small and medium sized organisations that are seeking global exposure from EPS networks and events.

Most of the respondents did not make any definitive choice yet, even if a clear preference was expressed to join the AM categories 2 and 3.

As potential EPS Associate Member, the contacted companies and technical institutes proposed specific actions for adding higher value to their organisation. These could be priority actions developed together with the EPS, such as:

• Initiatives to support early career researchers in Europe and promote physics education
• Meetings and webinars to share interests and needs with other associate members or researchers
• Opportunities to participate in scientific and industrial research projects with other partners
• Creation of new consortia to participate in EU project calls.
  

The EPS acknowledged these suggestions and decided that, in addition to the rights and benefits linked to the above categories of membership, new advantages will be proposed in the future for all AMs, namely,

• Discount rates for exhibitor stands and for participation in plenary talks, round tables, workshops and hands-on sessions during EPS Forums that will bring together young researchers, renowned experts and physics-based companies

• Access to the broad EPS scientific and technological network of academic and industrial facilities, as well as to databases of professionals

• Free access to Europhysics conferences dedicated to technological developments

• Free-of-charge publication and consultation of job offers on EPS dedicated websites

•  Participation to career development and societal (e.g., citizen science) meetings.
  
  

The present authors wish to thank again all the respondents for their important participation to the questionnaire and hope, with these new offers, to make EPS more attractive to physicists and engineers from the industry.

If you wish to join the EPS in this renewed framework of collaboration, do not hesitate to contact us at president@eps.org or ophelia.fornari@eps.org for complementary information.

Sources:

[1] American Physical Society

[2] “The Importance of Physics to the Economies of Europe”, European Physical Society, Sept. 2019

[3] “Encouraging STEM studies for the labour market”, European Parliament – Directorate General for Internal Policies (2015)

[4] “Europe needs more scientists”, European Commission - Directorate-General for Research (2004).

* STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics