ICTP has forged a new partnership with the Central European Initiative (CEI) to strengthen the Centre's ties with some of its closest scientific neighbours.

Going East

ICTP's global reputation has been built on its contributions to the advancement of science, mainly in the South. Nevertheless, nurturing ties with its scientific neighbours in eastern and central Europe has always been a key aspect of the Centre's overall agenda.
Indeed over the past 40 years, no fewer than 14,000 scientists from eastern and central Europe have participated in ICTP research and training activities.
That's why it should come as no surprise to learn that ICTP has recently forged a partnership with the Central European Initiative (CEI) to help advance that region's scientific capabilities.
"CEI," explains Ambassador Harald W. Kreid, an Austrian diplomat who serves as the organisation's director general, "was created in November 1989 through an agreement between Austria, Hungary, Italy and the former Yugoslavia."

Harald Kreid

Today the organisation has 17 member states. The Italian government provides most of its funding and the secretariat is located in Trieste.
"CEI's 'founding' purpose," Kreid says, "was to promote a dialogue between systems and ideologies that usually viewed each other with suspicion and hostility."
But two days after the official formation of CEI, the Berlin Wall fell. A European continent that had been split in two for nearly half a century had become one again. As a result, CEI quickly refocussed its mandate from one based on 'dialogue' to one based on 'action.'
During the organisation's first decade of existence, CEI largely funded 'feasibility studies' designed to outline potential projects for building and improving small- and medium-sized enterprises, agricultural cooperatives and other institutional structures that would help determine the success of the new political and economic order.
"CEI," Kreid notes, "wanted to help provide a strategic framework for critical investments among our member states." According to a recent study, the 4 million euro that CEI spent on these initiatives ultimately generated some 50 million euro in bank loans.
"Once those activities were underway, we began to focus directly on improving the region's overall infrastructure," says Kreid. "CEI is not a large organisation and therefore we have funded relatively small projects to upgrade, for example, local transportation and communication systems and to increase the reliability of local power networks. We have invested our limited funds in ways designed to leverage much larger investments from other organisations, including the European Commission."
"More recently," Kreid notes, "CEI has expanded its efforts to the role that knowledge---and particularly the mobility of knowledge---will undoubtedly play in the region's future well-being."
That's why the organisation has now turned to ICTP and the other international scientific institutions that belong to the Trieste System. "We are fortunate to have such a bright constellation of scientific institutions as our neighbours," observes Kreid. "We believe these institutions could help us attain our future goals."
To date, CEI has signed an agreement with ICTP that enables scientists from CEI member states to participate in ICTP workshops and conferences devoted, for example, to wireless communication, photonics and optics, and plasma physics.
The International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), Elettra Synchrotron Light Laboratory and International Centre for Science and High Technology (ICS), all located in Trieste, have signed similar agreements, leading to a steady stream of young scientists visiting the city from Bulgaria, Macedonia, Poland, and other nations across eastern and central Europe.
CEI's interaction with Trieste's international scientific institutions---largely through sponsoring the participation of scientists from member states in research and training activities held in Trieste---represents CEI's 'primary' science and technology network.
Now that the primary network is up-and-running, each Trieste-based scientific institution has been asked to forge contacts directly with scientific institutions in CEI member states. These arrangements will represent the 'secondary' network in the strategy.
As a first step towards this effort, ICTP will soon sign a memorandum of understanding with the Belarus Ministry of Education to build networks in material science and high energy physics and with the Romanian Academy of Science to forge networks in photonics and nuclear physics.
"These initial steps," adds Gallieno Denardo, long-time ICTP staff scientist and the Centre's contact person for the CEI-ICTP cooperative programme, "hold great promise for future collaboration. The nations of eastern and central Europe enjoy strong traditions of scientific excellence. For them, the networks should provide valuable opportunities to work in international settings that can take full advantage of their skills and talents."
"For ICTP," Denardo adds, "the programme offers a chance to build true partnerships with high-level scientists. It also improves the prospects for having our scientific neighbours work with us in efforts to assist our colleagues from the South."
In other words, by going East, ICTP hopes that its focus on the South could ultimately be strengthened. The success of this initiative will provide yet another measure of the Centre's long-standing efforts to improve science across the globe through mutual cooperation and exchange.

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