Author: Petra Rudolf

Dr. Jorge Mario Salazar Rios (picture) is the first grant awardee of the new International Training and Research (INTR) Programme, set up at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste in collaboration with the EPS.

The aim of the programme is to support researchers from developing countries who got their PhD in Europe and are now in the process of building up research facilities in their home country. By awarding them grants allowing them to come back for 1-2 months/year to the lab where they did their PhD project, these young researchers will be able stay scientifically productive while in the startup phase.

The INTR Programme is currently supported by donations from the EPS, the Optical Society (OSA) and SPIE, the International Society for Optics and Photonics, the latter two organisations providing  dedicated funding for fellowships in the area of optics and photonics. The hope is that other learned societies and foundations will decide to support the INTR Programme and that EPS member societies will convince the governments of their countries. While the INTR programme is currently focused on organising short research internships by former PhD students of European institutions, it can be extended both geographically, and also to provide longer training research internships for researchers from developing countries who have not done a PhD in Europe, if the corresponding funding can be recruited.

Dr. Jorge Mario Salazar Rios