We are pleased to announce that the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), and its Office of External Activities (OAE) has approved the new project NT-03 “Cosmology – Classical and Quantum Challenges” to support research and training program of the SEENET-MTP Network. The grant will be used for the exchange visits of the Network members in 2017.

Funding of the project is approved on a yearly basis and up to a maximum period of three years, subject to the positive evaluation of progress and annual reports.

The OEA provides support to cover the travel expenses of scientists who belong to the Network to visit other member Institutions and contributes towards their living expenses.

The project NT-03 is the continuation of the ICTP – SEENET-MTP project PRJ-09 “Cosmology and Strings” (2009-2016).

For more information and for exchange proposals contact the representatives of your Institutions in the Network Committees or the SEENET-MTP office ()

The SEENET-MTP Office Team

Prof. Dr. Viktor Urumov (University of Skopje, Macedonia) is visiting SEENET-MTP Network Node in Nis (August 12th – 18th, 2017). During this stay he will give 2 presentations on:

Cooperation in Balkan countries in fields of General Physics and HEP,

and

Some exact results for two-dimensional Ising models

This visit and program are organized by the SEENET-MTP Center, in the framework of the SEENET-MTP – ICTP Program NT-03.

We are pleased to announce that the First Announcement for the fourth PhD seminar “New Trends in High Energy Theory” in the framework of the CERN – SEENET-MTP PhD Training Program is available here.

The seminar will be held at the Faculty of Physics, University of Sofia, Bulgaria, from October 15 (arrival day) to October 21 (departure day), 2017.

More information about the Seminar can be found here. Contact e-mail: or . About origin of the CERN – SEENET-MTP PhD Training Program see here.

We are pleased to announce the fourth PhD seminar “New Trends in High Energy Theory” in the framework of the CERN – SEENET-MTP PhD Training Program.

The seminar will be held at the Faculty of Physics, University of Sofia, Bulgaria, from October 15 (arrival day) to October 21 (departure day), 2017.

The event is intended for PhD students with interests in High Energy Physics and String Theory. The students will be given the opportunity to attend lectures from introductory to advanced level. The lectures will be followed by exercise classes.

Topics discussed will include:

• Introduction to string theory.
• Black holes and holographic correspondence.
• Gauge theories and holography.
• Supersymmetry and Supergravity – holographic perspectives.

Lecturers are Timo Weigand (CERN, Geneva, Switzerland), Atish Dabholkar (ICTP, Trieste, Italy), Anastasios Petkou (AU, Thessaloniki, Greece), Veselin Filev (DIAS, Dublin, Ireland), Nikolay Bobev (KU Leuven, Belgium), Kiril Hristov (INRNE, BAS, Bulgaria) and Radoslav Rashkov (Sofia University, Bulgaria).

The deadline for applications is September 10, 2017.

Members of the Local organizing committee are Hristo Dimov (Faculty of Physics, Sofia University) – Chair, Radoslav Rashkov (Faculty of Physics, Sofia University), Plamen Bozhilov (Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy, BAS), Tsvetan Vetsov (Faculty of Physics, Sofia University) and Stefan Mladenov (Faculty of Physics, Sofia University).

Members of the Program committee are Gian Giudice (CERN, Geneva, Switzerland), Goran Djordjevic (Faculty of Science, Nis, Serbia), Wolfgang Lerche (CERN, Geneva, Switzerland) and Radoslav Rashkov (Faculty of Physics, Sofia University).

More information about the Seminar can be found here. Contact e-mail: or .

About origin of the CERN – SEENET-MTP PhD Training Program see here, and information about the previous Schools are available here (Belgrade, Bucharest and Timisoara).

In the latest issue of e-EPS news (June 2017) an article about cooperation between EPS and SEENET-MTP is published.

The cooperation between EPS and the South-Eastern European Network in Mathematical and Theoretical Physics (SEENET-MTP) was established almost a decade ago and was further reinforced at the Kick-off Meeting of the EPS Committee of European Integration (EPS-CEI) during the Balkan Workshop BW2013. In accordance with the accepted strategies, EPS-CEI and SEENET-MTP collaborated in domains of mutual interest and activities –supporting exchange of physicists and physics research across South-Eastern and Central-Eastern Europe and training of the new generation of physicists, supported at a pan-European level.

The full article is available here.

Prof. Dr. Nevenko Bilić (Ruđer Bošković Institute, Zagreb, Croatia) is visiting SEENET-MTP Network Nodes in Nis and Belgrade from June 12th to 18th, 2017. During this stay the talk

Cosmological Particles Creation and Reheating

is given on Wednesday, June 14th, at 2:00pm at Faculty of Science and Mathematics i Nis.

This research-exchange program is organized by the SEENET-MTP Center, in the framework of the SEENET-MTP – ICTP Program NT-03 “Cosmology – Classical and Quantum Challenges”.

Whe are pelased to announce that the SEENET-MTP Network has bestowed two Awards of Merit upon

• Prof. Dr. Wolfgang LERCHE (Head of the Theory Department 2014-2015, CERN)
• Prof. Dr. Sergio BERTOLUCCI (Director of Research and Scientific Computing 2010-2015, CERN)

for their significant contribution in the development of the SEENET-MTP Network, and particularly for their role in the establishing of the joint CERN – SEENET PhD Training Program in 2015.

The Award(s) of Merit were personally presented to Prof. Bertolucci and Prof. Lerche by Prof. Dr. Goran Djordjević (Executive Director of the SEENET-MTP Network and Office) during his previous visit to CERN.

The SEENET-MTP Award of Merit was previously awarded to CERN staff members Prof. Dr. Luis ÁLVAREZ-GAUMÉ and Prof. Dr. Ignatios ANTONIADIS

Each spring during last 13 years, CERN and the group IPPOG (International Particle Physics Outreach Group) organize a one-day program CERN Masterclass. In collaboration with around 200 institutes and universities around the world, high school students have the opportunity to learn about the physics of elementary particles, as well as many other areas of physics, science and technology, and to analyze real data collected in experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. This year more than 13.000 high school students in 52 countries took part in this program.

In Serbia, the international program “Masterclasses – Hands on Particle Physics” was organized for the eight time and for the second time at the Department of Physics, Faculty of Science in Nis. Local organizers, in addition to the Department of Physics, were the SEENET-MTP Office and Physical Society Niš. The program was held on Friday, March 17 in the Conference Hall and the Computer Centre of the Faculty. Earlier this month the program was organized in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Kragujevac.

The CERN Masterclass in Nis was attended by 37 pupils from secondary schools from Nis, Vranje and Trstenik. All participants received certificates prepared by the organizing team in cooperation with associates. All students attended the section in the Computer center where they had opportunity to analyze the real data from the CERN experiment. After a successful recognizing of events the individual results of all pairs were combined and sent to CERN. The results were presented during a video conference, moderated by representatives from CERN, where, beside Nis, students from Braga, (Portugal), Opava (Czech Republic) and Pisa (Italy) took part.

The lecturers were researchers from Serbia who arrived for the occasion from CERN: Dr. Predrag Milenović, coordinator of CERN Masterclass for Serbia, Dr. Jelena Jovicevic and Dr. Marina Krstic Marinkovic. Besides, the lecturers from Department of physics were Dr. Dragoljub Dimitrijevic and Milan Milosevic. Collaborators in realization of the program were Jelena Aleksic, Danilo Delibasic and Marko Stojanovic.

In addition, virtual visit to CERN and CMS detector was organized for students. The hosts for the visit were Dr. Dragoslav Lazic amd Nebojsa Smiljkovic (members of the CMS collaboration) and Prof. Dr. Goran Djordjevic (Chair Theoretical Physics, Niš and visiting scientist at CERN-TH).

More information, in Serbian, about the second CERN Masterclass in Nis are available at the website of the Department of Physics.

It is our pleasure to announce that The Framework Agreement for Scientific and Technical Collaboration between CERN and SEENET-MTP Network has reached its conclusion and was officially signed on 6th March 2017.

The Agreement was signed by Professor Gian Giudice, Head of Theoretical Physics Department, on behalf of CERN, and Professor Goran Đorđević, Executive Director of the Network and its Office at Nis, on behalf of the Network.

CERN and SEENET-MTP agreed to collaborate in domains of mutual interest, including in particular in training, capacity building and research in Theoretical High Energy Physics, Particle Physics, Computational Physics and Cosmology.

The Agreement represents a continuation and formalization of the long term cooperation in a new, official form. The Framework Agreement and the accompanying documents should specify and provide a sustainable cooperation materialized in the CERN – SEENET-MTP PhD Training Program, launched in April 2015. Until now about 90 PhD students from 8 countries have already informally enrolled in the program.

The Program was envisioned as a series of intense, self-connected, one-week seminars intended for PhD and advanced MSc students. Each seminar consists of lectures given by professors-experts in the field, from CERN, European institutions and from SEENET-MTP countries. Appropriate exercises given by younger researchers complete the usual program of the topical seminars.

A total of three seminars were held so far, titled “Supergravity – Belgrade, 2015”, “Modern Aspects of Quantum Field Theory – Bucharest, 2015” and “Computational Methods in Cosmology and General Relativity – Timisoara, 2016”. The previous seminars were held with a great success, with a total of 60 students from 8 countries taking part in them.

The Framework Agreement will enable a continuation of the PhD Training Program in 2017 and 2018, as well as a base for the next three-year cycle of the Training Program. The financial details of the Agreement and the Program are to be specified in the annexes to the Agreement.

The main partners in the Program will be full SEENET-MTP member nodes, other nodes and partner institutions, as well as individual members. Institutions and individuals from 11 SEENET-MTP countries and worldwide are also invited to join the Program.

A number of institutions and organizations across Europe are also invited to join and participate in the Agreement and the Program.

The SEENET-MTP Office welcomes students interested in participating in the Program who are not individual members of the SEENET-MTP yet to join us by filling the registration form for the Network and/or to express their wish to enroll in the Program by sending an e-mail to .

The SEENET-MTP – ICTP research – mobility project “Cosmology and Strings” was successfully completed by January 2017.

We would like to thank to all researchers and students who contributed to the project. We are especially indebted to the researchers who provided full info about the scientific publications supported by the project.

A special thankfulness to OEA-ICTP for continuous long-term partnership and support.

Continuation of the program is expected to take place in March 2017.