In the Covid-19 pandemic, mRNA technology showed for the first time what might be possible in the future. In its annual outlook, the scientific journal Nature now predicts that new mRNA vaccines will be among the most important scientific events of 2023. According to the Journal, pharmaceutical company BioNTech is expected to start human trials early this year mRNA vaccines against malaria, tuberculosis and genital herpes start.
New Year can be at least in the The US also received the first approval of a CRISPR genetic scissor-based therapy. bring: According to promising results of clinical trials, stem cells from patients can be modified with CRISPR-Cas9 technology to treat two genetic blood disorders (beta-thalassemia and sickle cell anemia).
With your first photos “James Webb Space Telescope” it has caused excitement as the largest and most powerful space telescope and will continue to provide new insights into the universe in 2023. This is also expected from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, whose first images are expected in July. The telescope, operated by US non-profit organization LSST Corporation, can scan the entire southern sky in just three nights, thanks to a large field of view.
In the new year, the Qitai Radio Telescope (QTT) in China, the world’s largest steerable telescope, is also scheduled to go into operation. A dish diameter of 110 meters allows it to observe 75% of the stars in the sky in the frequency range of 300 MHz to 117 GHz at any one time.
Energy crisis hits research
In view of the energy crisis and the high energy consumption of the particle accelerators of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva (Switzerland), their operating times must be reduced. As a result, less data is produced for the search for physics beyond the currently valid standard model of elementary particle physics.
This is exactly the goal Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory prescribed in southern China. There, starting in 2023, neutrinos will be accurately measured with a detector located 700 meters deep. The first researchers are scheduled to start working on the European ESS spallation source in 2023 near Lund (Sweden).
In Europe’s second large multinational neutron source – next to the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble – intensive beams of neutrons are generated with the help of a linear proton accelerator to study the structure of materials.
And Austria?
It will be exciting for Austria 2023 research community in the excellence initiative “excellent=austria”where the first decisions for two lines of funding are taken: On March 9, the Austrian Science Fund FWF announces which scientific consortia will become the “Cluster of Excellence”.
Eleven are still in the running, a jury will select four to six of them, who will each receive up to €70 million over ten years, by far the highest research funding in Austria. In December, a decision will then be taken as to which small research teams with their completely new ideas and which break with established approaches will receive funding of up to six million euros over five years in the “Campos Emergentes” funding program. A total of EUR 24 million is available for this.
While there is plenty of money for the Excellence Initiative, the FWF will have to save elsewhere in the new year. Because the funding agency will make more funds available to universities and non-university research institutions in ongoing FWF projects due to the sharp increase in salary costs, around 15 million euros are left for the approval of new projects. In addition, the “1000 Ideas Program” will be completely suspended.
The continuity of the financial future will be decided next year by the central research funding agencies and non-university research institutions: Shortly before Christmas, the federal government approved the new “Pact for Research, Technology and Innovation” (FTI Pact) for years 2024 to 2026 In 2023, the distribution of the pie of 5.05 billion euros for this period will be distributed.
The following institutions will have to negotiate their performance and funding agreements with the responsible departments in the new year: Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria, Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), Silicon Austria Labs (SAL), Ludwig Boltzmann Society (LBG), GeoSphere Austria (GSA), Austria Wirtschaftsservice (aws), Christian Doppler Research Society (CDG), Science Fund (FWF), Research Promotion Agency (FFG) and Agency for Education and Internationalization (OeAD).
Fight scientific skepticism
Next year, various actors will be dealing with the theme of “science skepticism”, which has become more virulent in recent years: On behalf of the Ministry of Education, for example, the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) until August a study of cause on the topic “Scepticism of science and democracy” Through the. An interim report should be available by the beginning of the new year, according to the ministry, which announced several initiatives to communicate science and democracy in 2023.
The UN General Assembly made the year 2023 “International Year of Maize” (IYM 2023) explained. At the Austria gets this grain in not even one percent of the entire cultivated area (2021: proso millet: 7,400 hectares, sorghum: 4,400 hectares). However, millet plays an important role worldwide as it can be grown in dry soil with minimal effort and is resistant to climate change.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) therefore sees them as the ideal solution for countries wishing to reduce their dependence on grain imports. IYM2023 aims to raise awareness of the nutritional and health benefits of sorghum and its suitability for cultivation in adverse and changing climatic conditions.
The new one works in Linz “Institute of Digital Sciences Austria” (IDSA) at the beginning. For this new Technical University of Linz, the founding president must first be appointed, which is expected in January. Beginning in the fall of 2023, IDSA will gradually begin operating, the founding president will work with the founding convention to develop draft curricula and appoint faculty, among other things. The first doctoral students will be admitted in the academic year 2023/24.
conferences
In June is the official Opening of a new hydraulic engineering laboratory at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (Boku) Vienna planned. On the Brigittenauer Spur between the Danube and the Danube Canal, the rivers will be recreated to scale and true to nature in a huge hall and questions about flood protection, ecology, riverbed deepening, hydropower and waterways will be examined with flows of up to ten cubic meters per second, unique in the world.
- The new laboratory is also likely to be an attraction for the approximately 1,200 international experts who will be present at the zur “Vienna Water Conferences 2023” which combined the World Congress of the International Association for Hydroenvironmental Engineering and Research, the World Conference on Great Rivers and the Danube Conference.
- After the pauses caused by the pandemic, Vienna is once again living up to its role as a congress city: on the occasion of the discovery of the Franz Josef Land as part of the Austro-Hungarian Expedition to the North Pole (Payer-Weyprecht Expedition) 150 years ago, on August 30, 1873, the congress takes place from August 17 to 18, 1873. until February 24, the largest annual congress in the world Arctic Research Conference instead, the Arctic Science Summit Week. It is organized by the Austrian Institute for Polar Research (APRI).
Scientists from APRI and the University of Graz, among others, are focusing on the north in September: a new research station in Greenland – an extension of the existing Sermilik station – is due to come on stream. This is a cooperation with the University of Copenhagen. According to the University of Graz, construction near the town of Tasiilaq, in the southeast of the world’s largest island, is nearing completion. Scientists will mainly collect climate data there.
- Many participants in the General Assembly of the European Union of Geosciences (EGU), for which more than 10,000 scientists from all over the world are expected. Internationally, the attention of many researchers will also be focused on the beginning of the 30th of November United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP28) judge. It takes place in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) and is scheduled to last until the 12th of December. The focus of the negotiations will also likely be the design of an equalization fund for countries in the Global South severely affected by climate change.
birthdays
Even if 2023 doesn’t have a great annual ruler, the new year can offer several round anniversaries:
- On June 19, 1623, that is, 400 years ago, the French Christian mathematician, physicist and philosopher Blaise Pascal we are born. He built calculating machines and examined the dependence of air pressure on altitude. The physical pressure unit and a programming language are named after him.
- On June 16, 1723, that is, 300 years ago, the Scottish philosopher and illuminator Adam Smith we are born. With his magnum opus “The Wealth of Nations” (1776), he founded classical economics.
- the british naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace was born 200 years ago, on January 8, 1823. He developed ideas about the theory of evolution independently of Charles Darwin.
- Died 100 years ago on February 10, 1923 Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen. In 1895, the German physicist discovered what he called “X-rays”. These were named after him in German, but are still called “x-rays” in English. In 1901, he received the first Nobel Prize in Physics.
- Walter Kohn was born 100 years ago, on March 9, 1923 in Vienna. Expelled from Austria by the Nazis as a child, he became a physicist in the US and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1998 for his work on density functional theory. He died in 2016.
- Also the “mother of the pill”, as he called himself, the chemist Carl Djerassiwas born 100 years ago, on October 29, 1923. The Vienna-born American chemist and writer developed the first “contraceptive pill” in the early 1950s. He died in 2015.
- For art historians, 2023 is a good occasion to remember the work of J.Ohann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, one of the most important Baroque architects in Central Europe. Born on July 20, 1656 in Graz and died on April 5, 1723 in Vienna, he left his signature on several buildings. Under the simple title “Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656-1723)”, the two OeAW researchers Herbert Karner and Werner Telesko, as well as the rector of the University of Vienna, Sebastian Schütze, have already published a magnificent volume on the 300th anniversary of their death.