European Astronomical Society
e-Newsletter  8
March 2019

The abstract submission is now closed. More than 1400 abstracts were received, which are currently being reviewed by the SOCs of the different Symposia and Special Sessions. The selection of contributed talks and the initial programme will be available mid-April. The deadline for early bird registration is 28 April 2019. All information can be found on the EWASS 2019 website.

The new database is now live, and all EAS members (Individual or Affiliated) can request their new user name and password by providing their e-mail address in the box below "I forgot my username and password" at https://eas.unige.ch/login.jsp. Please note the previous login details are no longer valid. You can then check the details available in our database.

We realise that many EAS members in 2018 have not opted in for free membership via their affiliated society. This may be due to several reasons. If you aimed to transfer but forgot or did not understand that you had to actively opt-in, please contact your Affiliated Society and request to opt-in, and encourage them to provide us a new list soon. Indeed, the EAS Office will only make changes based on lists provided by the Affiliated Societies. Similarly, any change (i.e., address, institution, email, etc.) should be modified via the provided list. EAS will not make any changes to its database for members of Affiliated Societies.

We will contact the remaining paying individual members later to pay the 2019 membership. EAS Life Members that are now members via an Affiliated Society will be contacted individually and will be offered a refund on the fees that have already been paid, in inverse proportion to the number of years that they have been a member.

Finally, please feel free to contact eas-web @ unige.ch if you have any issue when logging on the EAS website. While the EAS Office has endeavoured to make the transition as smoothly as possible, there can still remain some issues that can and should be corrected swiftly.

Inma Domínguez has worked on Type Ia Supernovae since her PhD that she received from the University of Barcelona in 1991. Later, she moved to the Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale (Frascati, Italy) where she developed several projects on stellar evolution. Inma has been a frequent research visitor at the INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Teramo, the University of Texas (Austin) and the University of Chicago. She has been the principal investigator of several projects funded by the Spanish Government related with the late stages of stellar evolution. Inma and colleagues have organized the Azarquiel School of Astronomy: a Bridge between East and West, that has been hold at Granada, Beirut, Istanbul and Portopalo. She has collaborated with the UNESCO-PEACE initiative for Palestine. From 2011 to 2015 Inma served as Director for Internationalization at the International School for Postgraduate Studies at UGR, being the university representative at the task force for doctoral studies of the Coimbra Group.

As part of its actions in this context, the Society is establishing the EAS Working Group on Inclusion. The WG charge is to observe inclusion and diversity activities in astronomy taking place in Europe (including those undertaken by affiliated societies), assess the EAS demographics, recommend to the Council new policies or practices with regard to increasing inclusiveness, and to assist in the implementation of these new activities where necessary.

We are initiating an open recruitment period for the EAS Working Group on Inclusion membership, and we encourage all interested EAS members to send brief statements of interest to the EAS Office (eas @ unige.ch). Applicants are welcome from all levels of seniority, and should be willing to commit to some time and effort. These statements of interest should include a description of your motivation for serving on the committee, along with any specific ideas or desired outcomes that you have for the committee. Committee members will be selected maintaining balance in gender, seniority and geographical area of affiliation.

The deadline for applications for membership of the EAS WG on Inclusion is 15 April 2019.

The scheme will kick off during EWASS 2019, but the mentorship is expected to extend further and last for at least one year by default (depending on mentor and mentee) and include at least two meetings either in person or via telecon/phone.

We invite all interested prospective mentors and mentees to send a brief email, indicating their area of activity, current position and affiliation, and whether they would be interested in being a mentor or a mentee to the EAS Office (eas @ unige.ch). Attendance to EWASS 2019 is desirable but not essential.

The exhibition featured a large model of Gaia, information boards, a newly-built EAS display, posters and information leaflets for people to take away with them. It was situated in a large, very prominent and busy area of the Parliament and was extremely well visited during the week.

Towards the close of the exhibition, talks were given by Prof. Sofia Feltzing, EAS Vice-President, entitled "Exploring the Milky Way: Gaia Shines a New Light on our Home in the Universe" and Prof. Günther Hasinger, ESA Director of Science, entitled "Exploring the Universe: Synergies in the ESA Scientific Programme". The audience included individuals from the Parliament, European Commission, European Research Council, international organisations based in Brussels and senior astronomers from several European nations. The talks were chaired by Clare Moody MEP and a summing-up was given by Prof. Roger Davies, EAS President. A reception was also held in the exhibition area after the talks.

Overall, the week has been a great success with many positive comments received. At its culmination, all the parties involved in its organisation agreed that it should be repeated, with a different theme, in about a year's time and it could ultimately become an annual event.

This agreement between one of Europe's prime astronomy journals and one of the major research organisations in Europe is a significant step in the transition to a general Open Access Publishing model, a publishing model with predetermined free access for all. As publishing research results and peers having access to these results is fundamental for science, and as research in astronomy is a highly international activity, the EAS, being the society of professional astronomers in Europe, has a keen interest in this matter.

In 2011, EAS has set up a Working Group to study aspects of Open Access Publishing. This Working Group, first chaired by Juan Zorec and subsequently by Klaas de Boer, was asked for an evaluation of the evolution of the market and general conditions for astronomical scientific publishing in Europe in order to explore the road to Open Access Publishing. In October 2013, a report was published with guiding principles which should be adhered to if changes in the publishing practice are proposed. This report can be found here. In the light of the agreement between A&A and the Max Planck Society and the widening gap between publication/subscription costs and public funding, we invite all EAS members to have a look at this report again. Most of the analysis and recommendations remain very relevant today.