AstroCeNT Welcomes Delegation from French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs

Last week on 11 March, AstroCeNT hosted a high-level French delegation led by Mr Aurélien Lechevallier, Director General for Globalization at the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and Prof. Jean-Luc Schneider, the Scientific and University Cooperation Attaché of the French Embassy in Poland. Prof. Rafał Moderski, Director of CAMK PAN and Professor Antoine Kouchner, Vice-president for International Affairs at Université Paris Cité and Deputy Director of the APC laboratory also came to greet the French delegation.

The programme of the visit included presentations by Professor Leszek Roszkowski, Head of AstroCeNT/NCAC and  Professor Kouchner. Both leaders highlighted the numerous collaboration points between two research centres and underscored the long history of successful scientific partnership between France and Poland.

Professor Moderski, Director of NCAC also gave a short speech in which he underlined AstroCeNT’s important role within NCAC’s structure and its ambitious, but realistic, plan to transition into an independent institute. He also talked about the importance of personal contacts in building new collaborations.

The presentations were followed by a series of questions from the Ministry representatives regarding French-Polish collaboration and the latest advancements in astrophysics research. The visit wrapped up with a tour of AstroCeNT’s electronics lab where Mariusz Suchenek showed some of his and his group’s achievements.

We’re thrilled about the Ministry’s interest in AstroCeNT and excited to explore new avenues for collaboration with our French colleagues.

It is worth noting that Prof. Schneider’s previous visit at AstroCeNT took place in December 2023 and was aimed at building and maintaining successful scientific cooperation between Poland and France.