NEW DIRECTOR FOR ING STFC has announced that Marc Balcells from IAC has been appointed Director of ING: see http://www.scitech.ac.uk/PMC/PRel/STFC/ingdirector.aspx with effective starting date of 20th July, 2009. Balcells can be reached at balcells@ing.iac.es REVIEWS OF ASTRONOMICAL FACILITIES IN UK AND EUROPE We remind our its user communities that several reviews with potentially important impact on current astronomical infrastructures are being carried out at present. All of these reviews invite input from their user communities to set scientific priorities. We encourage active participation in these processes. For ease of access, here are links to those reviews with most direct impact on ING: A) European-wide: the ASTRONET European Telescope Strategy Review Committee (ETSRC) is reviewing 2 to 4m telescopes which have significant public funding from European countries. Deadline for user feedback is 2009 August 31st. See http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/ 2to4mtelescopes/ We encourage astronomers from the three ING communities to provide input to ETSRC. B) UK-only: the UK Ground-based Facilities Review (GBFR), also known as the Rowan-Robinson review, aims at establishing the key science goals of STFC's ground-based astronomical infrastructures, in order to shape a strategy for future investments and membership in international astronomical facilities. A user questionnaire is on the web. Deadline for user feedback is 2009 July 31st. See http://www.scitech.ac.uk/About/Strat/Council/AdCom/oth/GBFR.aspx C) UK-only: the Near-Universe and Far-Universe Advisory Panels (NUAP, FUAP) provide science priorities to the STFC's Particle Physics, Astronomy and Nuclear Physics Science Committee (PPAN). While the open consultation for FUAP is closed, that for NUAP is open with a deadline of 2009 July 24th. See http://www.scitech.ac.uk/About/Strat/Council/AdCom/nuapconsult.aspx Marc Balcells Director of ING [ please note my new email address, balcells@ing.iac.es. My previous address (balcells@iac.es) is still active. ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --- Dr. Marc Balcells Director, Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes 38700 Santa Cruz de La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain http://www.ing.iac.es balcells 'at' ing.iac.es ============================================================= You can subscribe to [INGNEWS] by sending a message to elists@ing.iac.es with the following text in the body of the message and in the subject line: subscribe ingnews. To unsubscribe do the same but replacing subscribe by unsubscribe. More information can be found at http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/science/bulletin/.