UK SKAO Science committee Town Hall

The STFC UK SKAOSC Committee (UKSKAOSC) will be hosting a Town Hall meeting on Thursday 19 September 2024 (11:00-16:30) at Durham University.

The meeting aims to bring the UK SKA community together to provide information on performing science using resources provided by the UK SKAO Regional Centre (SRC). The programme will include updates from the SKAO and the UK SRC, and will include a focus on science demonstrator cases, which are community-led projects designed to test the functionality of the UK SRC resources. There will also be a panel discussion to explore the community’s questions about demonstrator cases, and how to get involved. Early Career Researchers (ECRs; PhD/postdocs) are particularly encouraged to attend.

Our confirmed speakers include key representatives from the SKAO and the UK SKAO Regional Centre, including:

• Wendy Williams (SKAO)
• Rob Beswick / Louise Chisholm (UK SRC)
• Julia Healy (UK SRC)

The meeting will be held at the Durham Astronomy Research Cluster in Durham and will be offered as a hybrid event. We encourage in person presence when possible. Please note that the event will start promptly at 11:00 (arrival/registration to start from 10:00) and finish at 16:30. The agenda will be shared with all the registered attendees in due course.

Registration for either in-person or remote attendance will be via Eventbrite at this link.

Funding for Early Career Researchers

STFC has kindly provided funding for ECRs to help them travel to the meeting. Funding will be allocated based on needs, prioritizing ECRs from universities that have not received SKAO-related project funding. ECR requests for travel support must be in line with UKRI’s business expense claims, business travel and subsistence policy and should be sent to George Madden (george.madden@stfc.ukri.org) and Simon Haynes (simon.haynes@stfc.ukri.org) by 6 September for consideration. These should be no more than one page and should include:

• Your science interests
• The reason why you want to attend this event
• An estimate of the funding needed, and why it is needed