Scope
The Network in Radio Astronomy will provide a forum for the exchange of information amongst infrastructures forming the European VLBI Network (EVN) and between the EVN and its user community, as well as to monitor progress in the initiatives leading to future large scale facilities in radio astronomy. The specific objectives of the Network are three-fold: i) to enhance the quality and quantity of the access provided to users of the European VLBI Network, a European-wide distributed facility; ii) to coordinate input on the scientific imperatives and technical requirements for the Atacama Large Millimetre Array from the wider astronomical community in Europe as part of the ongoing design and development phase of this project, and iii) to map out collaborations leading to a formal proposal for the construction of the Square Kilometre Array.

The research infrastructures that will take part in the Infrastructure Cooperation Network are institutes owning and operating radio telescopes in the European VLBI Network (see Table 1), radio astronomy institutes in Europe actively involved in studies leading to the new generation facility, ALMA (Table 2), and radio astronomy institutes in Europe, Australia and Canada which are actively involved in studies leading to the new generation facility, SKA (Table 3). A total of eleven institutes in the European Union are involved, one in Poland, and two outside Europe.

Representatives at the Network meetings:

• Directors of the member radio telescopes of the EVN
• Directors of radio astronomy institutes in Europe, Australia and Canada involved in preparations for future facilities
• Representatives of users of the EVN in western and eastern Europe
• Representatives of the Programme Management in DGXII
• One representative from the European Astronomical Society

There are no legal links between the partners in the Network. A number of the EVN institutes contribute to the operating costs of the EVN=s central institute, JIVE.

Table 1: Participating institutes in the European VLBI Network

Table 2: Participating institutes in the Atacama Large Millimetre Array project

Table 3: Participating institutes in the Square Kilometre Array project

The Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF) is the national radio astronomy facility and is conducting an active research programme on a number of the potential new technologies which could serve as the basis for the SKA. The Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Canada coordinates the technical research and development activities for the SKA in Canada, in particular on antenna concepts. Both institutes are major players in radio astronomy globally, and coordinate development work on SKA by other institutes and research organizations in their own countries. The European radio astronomy community will benefit substantially from close coordination with these institutes on the technical and management issues related to the SKA. US radio astronomy institutes have recently formed an informal consortium to coordinate their activities, and the European astronomical community will benefit from close coordination with the US. Representation from the key institutes in India and China at the discussions will be invited on a case-by-case basis.

The European Astronomical Society representative will help facilitate a `Round Table on Astronomy’ which is planned to take place once per year at the Annual General Meeting of the European Astronomical Society between this Infrastructure Cooperation Network in Radio Astronomy and OPTICON in Optical/Infra-red Astronomy.

The General Meetings of the Network will be organized once per year in conjunction with one of the regular meetings of the Board of Directors of the European Consortium for VLBI. The VLBI Consortium itself meets twice a year at a member institute on a rotating basis. As is current practice with meetings of the VLBI Consortium, the date and location of the General Meeting of the Infrastructure Cooperation Network will be set 6 months in advance, and invitations issued to participants including the Programme Management in DGXII. The agenda and working papers will be circulated at least two weeks in advance of the meeting. Minutes of the General Meeting will be made and circulated to all participants within one month, as is now the case with the minutes of the VLBI Consortium meetings.

Typical Agenda for a General Meeting of the Network

1. Approval of the agenda
2. Approval of the minutes of the previous Network General Meeting
3. Review of action items arising from the previous meeting
4. Activity reports from the European VLBI Network, the Atacama Large Millimetre Array, and the Square Kilometre Array
5. Reports on the joint scientific/technological activities and studies of the Cooperation Network and other EC-supported activities
6. Information on EC programmes of interest to Network participants by DGXII Programme Management
7. Information of interest to the Network participants by the European Astronomical Society representative
8. Opinions and suggestions of the EVN user representatives
9. New action item
10. Any other business
11. Date and venue of the next Network General Meeting

A new Web page for the Infrastructure Cooperation Network will reside on the EVN site and contain pointers to the Web pages for the EVN, ALMA and SKA. A regular report will be written for the Newsletter of the European Astronomical Society which receives wide circulation in Europe.

Each partner will contribute 2 person months to participation in the Workshops, 4 person months to implementing the changes at the individual telescopes, and 24 person months of permanent staff effort to carrying out the observations.

The major project milestones and deliverables are shown in the accompanying chart at the end of the Project Programme.

1. The deliverables at the end of the contract period will be:
   1. improved inter-operability of the radio telescopes in the EVN measured in terms of sustained reliable operation, with the percentage of observing hours lost due to equipment and operational failures being less than 10%.
   2. frequency agile operation
   3. automated calibration and flagging of data
2. The coordination afforded by the Cooperation Network will lead to operational practices being adopted by the EVN which result in higher performance, as well as more flexible instrumentation being available for the study of variable radio sources.
3. All users of the EVN facilities, both within the Cooperation Network and outside, will benefit from the results. Deliverables i) and iii) will be directly visible to the users in terms of the quantity and quality of the data produced by the EVN. Deliverable ii) will benefit those users doing research into variable galactic and extragalactic radio sources. All three deliverables improve the operational efficiency for the infrastructure operators participating in the EVN.
4. The Network policy on coordination and complementarity is that all radio telescopes in the EVN should adopt the same or similar operational practices during EVN observing sessions. In addition, all radio telescopes should strive to implement frequency agile receiver systems with the same or similar characteristic switching timescales.
5. The new procedures and capabilities developed for the EVN will be announced in the thrice-yearly Call for Proposals and at the appropriate seminars and VLBI schools. As is traditional in the radio astronomy field, new technical and astronomical results will be published in the open literature.
6. There are no obvious risks which will hinder the exploitation of the results once available.

All partners in the activity are infrastructure operators who will benefit from the expected results by reducing downtime during observing sessions to a minimum. Implementation of frequency agility will reduce the time to change frequency from the traditional few hours at many stations down to one minute, which has obvious operational benefits to the infrastructure operators. Both aspects provide additional attraction for users to propose observations on the EVN.

The EVN is already a working example of a distributed infrastructure.

The activity will be organised through the EVN Technical and Operations Group (TOG). The TOG is responsible for technical developments and operations in the EVN with members from each of the radio observatories. A plan of action for each of the segments of the activity will be produced as a result of the Workshops, and standard management techniques and software such as Superproject will be employed, where appropriate, to monitor progress in relation to the milestones.

Excellent communication links exist amongst member institutes of the European VLBI Network, established in the course of 20 years of joint observations. Electronic mail, World Wide Web, and FTP services are in daily use. A great deal of experience in coordinating international projects within the EVN has been obtained during the construction of the new 16-station data processor at JIVE, and in the upgrade of the data acquisition systems at each radio telescope to the MkIV standard.

The Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory in South Africa will participate in this activity prior to joining the European VLBI Network.

No sub-contracting is foreseen in the course of this activity.

The host institute and JIVE will each contribute 1 man-month to the organization of each event, a total of 4 man-months for JIVE and 1 man-month for each of the 4 host institutes. The other institutes will each contribute a total of 1 man-month of their permanent staff effort to the preparation and delivery of lectures at the VLBI Schools.

The milestones and deliverables are shown in the chart at the end of the Project Programme.

a)

• Via the VLBI Schools, to propagate knowledge of radio interferometry and VLBI techniques widely throughout the astronomical community in Europe.
• Via the EVN Symposia, to provide a forum in which the most recent VLBI results can be presented and young astronomers can come in contact with their more established colleagues and initiate trans-national collaborations.
• Via the General Users Meetings, to allow the EVN management to take note of, and react to, comments from the users of the EVN on its operational efficiency and plans for future developments.

b) The coordination afforded by the Cooperation Network will lead to greater awareness in the general astronomical community of the opportunities offered by the Symposia and Schools.

c) The beneficiaries of this activity are the astronomical community in general, including astronomers in the EVN institutes.

d) The Network policy with respect to this activity is that each participating institute should take its turn in hosting a Symposium and/or a School. This will enhance the local awareness of the EVN in the country hosting the event.

e) The papers presented at the EVN Symposia will be refereed and published in book form.

f) There are no obvious risks associated with this activity.

Trans-national research collaboration in radio astronomy in Europe will be stimulated by participation in the EVN Symposia. As a result of the VLBI Schools, the user community in Europe will become more competent in exploiting the VLBI technique and radio interferometry. Establishing a broader base of competence in radio interferometry in Europe will also serve the long term interests of the other two elements of the Radio Astronomy Programme, ALMA and SKA, in building up the potential community for their use. In addition, the training in radio astronomical image processing and analysis provides an excellent basis for careers for young scientists in the information technology branch of industry.

EVN VLBI Schools and EVN Symposia are held in alternate years. JIVE will carry out the organization of these events in collaboration with the host institute. JIVE=s role includes placing an announcement on the EVN and JIVE Web pages, circulating the announcement on email exploders, and handling travel requests. The host institute is responsible for the venue, organizing accommodation for the participants, and the logistics during the event. JIVE and the host institute are jointly responsible for the lecture and demonstration programme for the Schools, the scientific programme for the Symposia, and for publication of the Proceedings of the Symposia.

The partners in this activity are all well established centres for millimetre-wave radio astronomy in Europe either operating state-of-the-art national millimetre-wave radio telescopes or making major technical contributions in this area (e.g. correlators). Each of the partners will contribute 4 man-months of their permanent staff effort during the two years of this activity.

The milestones and deliverables are shown in the chart at the end of the Project Programme.

a) The deliverables at the end of the cooperation will be a set of reports that define the European perspective on the issues investigated and provide the necessary scientific argumentation and technical background for implementation in the project.

b) One of the objectives of this activity is to stimulate the coordination of European expertise in millimetre-wave radio astronomy. The Workshops will be the prime mechanism for accomplishing this.

c) The users of the results of the studies will be the ALMA Project Management in the first instance. The Cooperation Network partners and the participants in the Workshops will benefit from their direct involvement in the decision making process on the scientific and technical profile of ALMA. The general astronomical community will benefit from a well conceived array design once it is built.

d) The Cooperation Network believes that it is essential that the European radio astronomy community coordinate its scientific and technical participation and support for ALMA. The Workshops and reports are designed to help accomplish this policy.

e) European scientists and engineers will present the results of these studies at international scientific meetings such as the General Assemblies of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the International Union of Radio Science (URSI). In appropriate cases, papers will be written for publication in refereed astronomical and engineering journals.

f) There are no obvious risks which would hinder exploitation of the results.

The ALMA project as a whole can be expected to benefit from the activity proposed. The proposed studies will help define the specific roles of the partners in the further development of the project.

The ALMA project provides no opportunity to establish a distributed infrastructure.

The Coordinator of this activity, the Max-Planck-Institute for Radioastronomy which is providing the chairmanship of the European ALMA Scientific Advisory Committee, will take the initiative to organize the topical workshops to be held in the participating institutes in turn. This will be done in collaboration with the host institute for each Workshop. Participation in the Workshops will be by invitation alone, with the aim of bringing together the experts on the subject of the Workshop. Work packages may result from a Workshop involving research at one or more of the institutes to clarify technical or scientific requirements. The results of this research will also be included in the report from each Workshop going to the ALMA Project Management.

No sub-contracting is foreseen.

The US partners in ALMA have expressed interest in the results of this activity, and will be kept informed by the Coordinator. Potential Canadian partners in ALMA have also expressed interest in the results of this activity, and will be kept informed by the Coordinator.

The partners involved all operate state-of-the-art national radio telescopes working at centimetre to metre wavelengths, and represent much of the world=s expertise in radio astronomy technology at these wavelengths. They will each contribute at least 4 man-months in technological research effort in support of the decision-making process.

The milestones and deliverables are shown on the accompanying chart at the end of the Project Programme.

a) The main objective is to map out the collaborations leading to a formal proposal for the Square Kilometre Array. This is foreseen to be a global endeavour with a leading role for Europe. The main deliverable at the end of the contract will be a document which outlines the scientific case for the SKA, the technical concepts to be employed, plans for prototyping critical elements, a proposal for managing the project including the division of responsibility amongst the partners, and a strategy for seeking funding for the project. This document will form the basis of formal proposals to the appropriate authorities in the participating regions of the world.

b) By setting out a timeline for reaching a consensus, the Cooperation Network will help focus attention on the specific technological and organizational questions that need to be answered, and so perform a crucial role in coordinating activities around the world. It will identify opportunities for collaborative technical development, especially with European industry. This is especially valuable because there is no international organization like CERN or ESO for radio astronomy.

c) The users of the results will be the partners in the Network representing the radio astronomy community around the world.

d) The Network policy on coordination and complementarity for this future major research infrastructure will be established during the course of this activity.

e) The results of the work done in the course of this activity will be presented at international scientific meetings such as the General Assemblies of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the International Union of Radio Science (URSI). This will inform the astronomical community at large of progress in preparations for this facility, and at the same time provide an opportunity for astronomers and engineers not directly involved in the project to comment on the directions being followed.

f) There are risks involved in achieving the necessary consensus in the 4 years of the cooperation proposed here. However, there are no obvious risks which may hinder exploitation of the outcome of this activity once available.

SKA is an ambitious project, but one necessary to maintain the momentum of discovery in this wavelength region. All partners will benefit from the expected result of a well-defined technical and organizational strategy for this project.

The distribution of the total collecting area of the SKA will be one of the issues studied in the course of this activity. It is essential to optimize this configuration for the key science objectives, and an early goal of this activity will be to define these objectives. One possible array configuration involves placing segments of the array at separations of hundreds to thousands of km from the central concentration in order to achieve high angular resolution in VLBI mode. These segments would be maintained locally and operated as part of the SKA and occasionally as a standalone telescope when the SKA observing programme allows. This then would be a distributed infrastructure similar to the European VLBI Network.

At the start of the contract period, the Coordinator of this activity, the Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy (NFRA), will call a meeting of the Directors of the participating institutes in order to set the agenda for the studies to follow, and agree on the steps leading to a consensus. This will involve organizing workshops on the competing technologies for the SKA. This will be done in collaboration with the host institute for each Workshop. Participation in the Workshops will be by invitation alone, with the aim of bringing together the experts on the subject of the Workshop. Work packages may result from a Workshop involving research at one or more of the institutes to clarify technical or scientific requirements. The selection of the best technical concept will be made by the Directors of the participating institutes who will then take the responsibility for generating the appropriate document.

No sub-contracting is foreseen as part of this activity.

The Australian and Canadian partners in the Network represent local consortia in those countries, and they will integrate the interests of their local consortia in their responses to strategic issues. The US Consortium will also interact with the Network partners in a similar way.