New mega-antenna consortium established

The collaboration of telescopes around the globe, involved in measuring celestial objects at radio frequencies, will now be easier and more efficient after the European Commission gave the green light to forming the consortium.

The agreement sees JIVE, a network of radio telescopes situated in Europe, Asia and South Africa, realise many administrative advantages and tax exemptions enjoyed by major international organisations. Until now, the telescopes of the European VLBI Network have worked on a partnership basis, but a Commission Decision will allow it to operate as an international organisation.

The possibility of forming this new kind of consortium was granted to research infrastructures in the European Research Infrastructure Consortium Regulation, adopted by the EU in 2009. The new status will also allow JIVE to function as a combined network, making data processing and exchange of observations more efficient.

JIVE is proposing to develop the most accurate timing distribution infrastructure in the world and enable additional cutting-edge applications of VLBI (very long baseline interferometry) and radio astronomy technologies. Under FP7, the EU supported the radio astronomy community with €25m of funding, allowing access to network facilities for astronomers from all over Europe.

Four countries are members of the new JIV-ERIC consortium, also providing financial support: the Netherlands (NWO), the UK (STFC), Sweden (Swedish Research Council) and France (CNRS). Five additional countries, China, Italy, Spain, South-Africa and Germany are expected to join the consortium in the near future. JIV-ERIC will have its headquarters in Dwingeloo, the Netherlands and is the tenth ERIC adopted since 2009. Five more ERICs are due to be adopted in 2015.