The BRICS Astronomy Consortium has laid a good foundation and made progress over the years, evident in that finally in 2021 the consortium was successfully granted seed funding to work on the flagship project, The BRICS Intelligent Telescope and Data Network (BITDN) Project. The flagship programme is based on a merger of the transients and big data proposals which were presented, discussed and rated at the October 2019 BAWG meeting. The combined programme is currently ongoing and involves astrophysical transients, survey science and time domain astronomy. It has plans to involve forefront observational facilities and the big data/compute infrastructure needed to support them. Existing and new facilities in all 5 BRICS countries will be harnessed and developed to support the programme.
The programme strongly supports the human capacity development agenda within BRICS and will foster scientific collaboration in the frontiers of astronomy between scientists in all the BRICS countries and beyond. This development, amongst many other things, will form an important point of discussion at the BRICS Astronomy Workshop and Working Group Meeting 2022 and is only the start of many other great projects and leaps that BRICS Astronomy still plans to achieve.
Hosted by the National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), the upcoming 8th meeting of BRICS Astronomy Consortium Meeting promises to be an exciting event to look forward to, following the success and resolutions in the previous 7 meetings which were held at the different BRICS countries previously. One of the key resolutions discussed at the 7th meeting in India was regarding the proposal of establishing the BRICS Astronomy Association, the results of these consultations will be reported back to the consortium and will be discussed during this next meeting.
The theme for the 8th annual meeting is titled “The BITDN Flagship programme: Transients, Surveys and Time Domain Astronomy”.
Details:
Date: 18 – 20 October 2022
Time Zones: 19:00 (GMT+08:00) China = 08:00 (GMT-3:00) Brazil = 13:00 (GMT+2:00) South Africa = 14:00 (GMT+3:00) Russia = 16:30 (GMT+5:30) India
Register on:
https://bawg2022.casconf.cn/page/1559426381950095361
For additional information, contact:
Duduzile Kubheka
BRICS Astronomy Project Coordinator
Email: duduzile@saao.ac.za
Shulin Li
NAOC contact point
Email: lisl@nao.cas.cn
Audrey Dikgale
SA Department of Science and Innovation contact point
audrey.dikgale@dst.gov.za
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Mission of the BRICS Astronomy Working Group
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The mission of the BRICS Astronomy Working Group is to promote cooperation between BRICS member countries in the field of astronomy and enabling technologies through joint activities of government, universities, research institutions, and industry, as relevant, to develop astronomical sciences, generate new knowledge, train human capital, develop new technologies and applications, and improve public understanding of science.