SSAA News No 61
Newsletter of the SSAA/SGAA from 13 September 2025
1. Invitation to the SSAA GA held Oct 9-10, 2025 in Locarno organized by IRSOL:
With this newsletter all members of the Swiss Society for Astrophysics and Astronomy are kindly invited to attend the General Assembly 2025.
Registration is open until September 20 2025
The GA will be held Oct 9 in the afternoon until Oct 10 lunch time with the possibility to visit the IRSOL observatory on Oct 10 in the afternoon. Link to the current program of the GA.
Location: The GA will be held at the “Aula magna at Liceo di Locarno”
Associated Swiss EST Workshop:
There will be the Swiss European Solar Telescope (EST) workshop on October 8-9 at the same location https://www.sviss.ch/est25/. The goal of the workshop is to discuss possible Swiss contributions to the project. All interested people are welcome to participate.
2. 2nd call for MERAC Funding and Travel Awards – Deadline: September 30
The SSAA is pleased to announce the second 2025 call for MERAC awards.
Since 2013 the SSAA committee distributes Funding and Travel Awards (20’000 Euro in total) sponsored by Foundation MERAC (Mobilising European Research in Astrophysics and Cosmology), a nonprofit foundation in Switzerland to recognize, encourage and promote the research and mobility of young European Astrophysicists and Cosmologists.The recipients of the MERAC awards are listed here: https://ssaa.ch/de/financial_support/merac_funding_and_travel
The objectives of the grants are short project stays abroad within a dedicated project. The overall aim is to support the development of research projects by young astrophysicists. The grants do not cover expenses for scientific apparatus or equipment.The grants are subject to the following conditions:
- The grantee must be employed by or affiliated with a Swiss research institute or University.
- The grants must be used to cover project costs, not or only partially covered by other institutions.
- The grant has to be used within two years, after which unused funding must be reimbursed to the SSAA.
- The grantee provides the SSAA with a financial report and short final report on the use of the grant.
- The grantee allows the MERAC Foundation to make his/her biography and project summary public.
Applications will be received twice per year (31 March and 30 September). They must include the following information:
- a short biography,
- a research project description with a summary,
- and a budget estimate.
- In case of a multiple applications, the list of other solicited funds shall be given.
The applications should be limited to a maximum of 5 pages, in a single pdf file, to be sent to
Deadline is September 30.
3. Saas-Fee Course 2027 – Deadline: October 9, 2025
We kindly invite proposals for the Saas-Fee Course to be held in 2027 to be sent to before October 9 (or presented ad-hoc at the GA).
At the upcoming GA the Saas-Fee course topic for 2027 will be selected.
4. Call for Volunteers to host the SSAA GA in 2026 – Deadline: October 9, 2025
We kindly invite volunteers to host the SSAA GA in 2026. Please send proposals to before October 9 (or present it ad-hoc at the GA).
At the upcoming GA date and location for the next General Assembly will be announced. We plan to open a call for abstracts for the next GA in spring 2026.
5. Call for Sessions at EAS annual meeting 2026 in Lausanne – Deadline September 30, 2025
The European Astronomical Society annual meeting 2026 will be held in Lausanne (29 June to 3 July 2026). The Call for sessions at the EAS 2026 is open - deadline September 30, 2025. For more details: https://eas.unige.ch/EAS_meeting/call.jsp
6. Call for nominations for the Prix Schläfli 2026 - Deadline: November 30, 2025
The Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) awards the Prix Schläfli for scientific articles resulting from PhDs that make major contributions to key questions in their respective fields. In 2026, four prizes will be awarded in following disciplines:
Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Geosciences.
See further details see: https://scnat.ch/en/awards/schlaefli/guidelines
Application form: https://scnat.ch/en/awards/schlaefli/application
Deadline: 30 November 2025
7. Call for EAS 2026 Prizes – Deadline October 31, 2025
The EAS Council invites EAS members to nominate suitable candidates for the EAS Prizes of 2026.
EAS members are invited to submit nominations for Prizes awarded in 2026 by the EAS, ie, the MERAC Prizes for Best Doctoral Thesis, Tycho Brahe Medal, and Fritz Zwicky Prize, by October 31. More details:
https://eas.unige.ch/merac_prizes.jsp
https://eas.unige.ch/tycho_brahe_medal.jsp
https://eas.unige.ch/zwicky_prize.jsp
In addition, the nominations are invited for the new EAS Fellows programme by the same deadline, October 31:
https://eas.unige.ch/fellows.jsp
8. Registration open for 55th Saas-Fee Advanced Course, 2026
The organizers are happy to announce the 55th Saas-Fee Advanced Course: “Astronomical Interferometry: the angular-resolution frontier” - January 18-23, 2026. The Saas-Fee Advanced Course is held annually by the Swiss Society for Astronomy and Astrophysics, bringing together renowned experts and early-career researchers in the iconic Saas-Fee village, 1800m in the heart of the Swiss Alps.
This year the course will focus on interferometry, featuring lectures by Shep Doeleman, Dave Kieda, Anna Scaife, and Gail Schaefer. Participants will also have the opportunity to present a poster on their current research.
For more information, please visit: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1526506/
The conference is limited to 60 participants. Registration will start September 20, 2025 with a closing on October 20.
Application form: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1526506/
9. Annual membership payment
The 30 CHF annual SSAA membership payment can be made via the provided payment slip:
https://ssaa.ch/en/about_the_ssaa/membership
Please note that members of the SSAA can also become member of the EAS at no additional cost.
10. General information on the Society For more information concerning the SGAA/SSAA, astronomy in Switzerland, and related topics visit https://ssaa.ch.
For any information and messages to be circulated via the SGAA/SSAA mailing list please e-mail your input to: .