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EU Comissioner Potočnik visited the Institute of Physics in Belgrade and its Scientific Computing Laboratory

On July 14, 2006 the Institute of Physics in Belgrade (IPB) and its Scientific Computing Laboratory were hosts to high level delegations from the EU Directorate General for Research, headed by Janez Potočnik, Commissioner for Research, and from the Ministry of Science of Serbia, headed by Aleksandar Popović, Minister of Science.

The joint delegation also included Andras Siegler, Director INCO, Giancarlo Caratti, JRC, Tania Friederichs, DG Research, Ivan Videnović, Assistant Minister of Science, and Gradimir Milovanović, Chairman of the National Science Council.

The main purpose of the Commissioner’s visit to the IPB was to get first-hand information about the four IPB laboratories that were awarded three year EU Centre of Excellence grants, which started on July 1, 2006.

The results of the 2005 SSA call for reinforcing research excellence in the West Balkans were a success for Serbia whose R&D centre received 8 of the region’s 10 grants; for Serbian Physics (6 grants), and, most impressively for the Institute of Physics in Belgrade whose high quality research was recognized with the awarding of EU Centre of Excellence grants to 4 of its laboratories.

The success of IPB was further enhanced by the fact that the CX-CMCS project of its Scientific Computing Laboratory (SCL) was the best evaluated R&D proposal in the whole West Balkan region.

At the Scientific Computing Laboratory Commissioner Potočnik was greeted by Aleksandar Belić, head of SCL, and given a brief overview of the laboratory’s mission and R&D activity. In particular, the Commissioner for Research was informed about SCL’s three-year project for reinforcing SCL research capacity transforming it into an EU Centre of Excellence for the Computer modelling of complex systems and Grid technologies. Commissioner Potočnik was particularly interested to learn about SCL’s participation in EU e-Infrastructure projects: EGEE-II, SEE-GRID, and SEE-GRID 2. During the tour of SCL the joint delegation had a chance to view the lab’s computing infrastructure, particularly its PARADOX parallel cluster – one of the central GRID resources in the SEE region.

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Potocnik