Consortium

The Institute of Accelerating Systems and Applications (IASA) was founded in 1994 in order to promote research and postgraduate studies in the Greek University system. It is affiliated with six university departments: Medicine, Physics and Informatics of the University of Athens and Electrical & Computer Engineering, Chemical Engineering and General Science of the National Technical University of Athens. IASA also has a number of support divisions, ranging from computing and electronics to medical physics, which support and enhance the capabilities of the individual research areas. IASA is an autonomous legal entity governed by a Board of Directors elected by the governing bodies of the two Universities and it is managed by a directorate appointed by the Senates of the two Universities. Its developmental program and its operating funds are directly provided by the Ministry of Education which exercises direct financial oversight over the Institute. IASA is the largest research institute operating under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. The IASA IT/Grid division, through the participation in the HellasGRID cluster computing system, participates in the EGEE Infrastructure. In addition, IASA through its participation in a numerous of EU projects (EGEE-I, EGEE-II, EGEE-III, GRIDCC and EGI-InSPIRE) has built up significant expertise in the coordination & operation of a production-grade Grid infrastructure and in the porting and support of users and applications. The Grid Operations Center in IASA is one of the major stakeholders of the Greek National Grid Initiative (HellasGrid) and it maintains one of the official HellasGrid clusters (HG-02-IASA). At the international level, the IASA held (on behalf of GRNET) the position of deputy Regional Operations Coordinator for the EGEE ? South Eastern Europe region and it was also the South Eastern Europe?s Regional Coordinator for the application porting/support activity. Nowadays, in the EGI era, the IASA is acting as the task leader for the User Community Technical Services offered by the EGI-InSPIRE project. Furthermore, the IASA is the responsible institute for the development and provision of two EGI global services: the EGI Applications Database (AppDB) [http://appdb.edu.eu/] and the EGI-Inspire Software Repository [http://repository.egi.eu/]. The EGI AppDB is an international, fully-fledged, community driven web service/database, meant to act as o point-of-reference for scientific applications and tools available within the EGI infrastructure, which also provides a registry of scientists involved in the development of the said software. Finally, in close cooperation with GRNET, IASA has taken over the responsibility for the deployment and hosting of the EGI-Inspire Software Repository. A highly available source of software components available for inclusion in the Unified Middleware Distribution (a superset of the four middleware consortia ARC, gLite, UNICORE and Globus) or for direct use by National Grid Initiatives. IASA has assembled significant teams of faculty members from the university departments along with post-doctoral associates and PhD students. Many of these faculty members receive support for their work through both national and international funding sources. The research program varies from Basic Physics to Medicine. The IASA team has the overall coordination of the project. The technical team of IASA is responsible for the development of the Discover the COSMOS Community Support Environment and provides the necessary technical support for the use of eServices for both ATLAS and CMS detectors.

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world's largest and most respected centers for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works. At CERN, the world's largest and most complex scientific instruments are used to study the basic constituents of matter - the fundamental particles. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of Nature. The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions. Founded in 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe's first joint ventures and now has 20 Member States. This year celebrates the start of physics at the Large Hadron Collider, the World's largest scientific instrument, including the commissioning of two enormous particle detectors known as ATLAS and CMS. These colossal devices utilize the most complex and cutting-edge technology in order to try to find some of the missing pieces in the jigsaw of our understanding of the Universe. Each experiment comprises more than 2000 scientists and engineers and could, over the next few years, literally cause a revolution in physics! Both experiments will make some of the vast quantities of data available to students around the world and are developing tools to facilitate student analyses. In the case of ATLAS these tools are already well advanced (under the Learning with ATLAS @CERN framework) whilst CMS completed the tool development by summer 2010. The CERN team coordinates International Implementation activities. The CERN group integrates the Discover the COSMOS Demonstrators in the international and national physics teacher programmes in which 1000 teachers per year are participating, with the goal of bringing the excitement of modern physics research into classrooms in an intuitive way. Similar activities will be also organized in the framework of the CERN visits programme and all CERN exhibitions.

CNRS is the largest public structure in France for scientific research (about 12000 researchers and 14000 engineers, technicians and administrative). Institut d'astrophysique de Paris (IAP) is one of the astrophysical research laboratories of CNRS and University Pierre & Marie Curie-Paris VI (UPMC), the largest scientific and medical university in France. With about 150 researchers, administrative, postdocs and students, IAP has outstanding records of research and extended national and international collaboration and networks. IAP is regularly involved in public outreach and diffusion of astronomy in schools. Part of its staff is heavily involved in teaching activities, including teacher training. In addition, within UPMC innovative pedagogical know-how such as on-line distance learning, and the building and use of multimedia tools are developed. UPMC has also a broad range of public outreach activities. Both IAP and UPMC participate or lead numerous FP5-6-7 projects which include strong outreach sections. They have coordinated numerous Astronomy outreach projects promoting the Hands-On Universe (HOU) initiative in Europe; a new LLP project focused on radio astronomy (Connecting classrooms to the Milky Way) has just started. IAP co-leads the WP2. The main task of the team is to define the pedagogical framework for the integration of the eScience activities (related to Astronomy) in the school classrooms, to select best practices in astronomy, and to design the relevant Discover the COSMOS Demonstrators. The researchers from IAP who have developed the European-HOU project and network, are experts on the building of interactive and interdisciplinary exercises for classrooms, along with the organization of teacher training workshops at the European level including the experimental/observational work.

The FCTUC holds now 14 Departments, that cover the majority of the scientific areas of the Natural, Physical, and Exact Sciences, of Engineering, of Life, of the biggest Art than is Architecture and of Anthropology and, as enclosed establishments, the Museums of Natural History and of Physics, the Botanical Garden, the Geophysical Institute and the Astronomy Observatory. There are several integrated Investigation Units and associated ones and around 7000 students. It?s at the Astronomical Observatory that we will find the motivation of this project. At the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, Francisco Miranda da Costa Lobo (1864 ? 1945), astronomer and professor at the University of Coimbra started the necessary studies to install an instrument in this University that would allow the acquisition of images of the Sun through the use of spectroscopy. Similar devices are also installed a little around all Europe and the United States. The study of the Sun, especially of its outside layers, was popular back then. On the 1st January 1926, Francisco da Costa Lobo, with the useful cooperation of his son Gurmesindo, began the daily registration of solar images in K1-vand K3 lines: the spectroheliograms. Thus begins an observational work, whose protocol principles and bases have been preserved until now, allowing the gathering of the aforementioned image assets. To this fact a team of dedicated observers have contributed a lot. They guarantee that the Sun observations are done on weekdays, weekends and holidays. At the present time (and since 1968) the spectroheliograph is installed at the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Coimbra, in Santa Clara Despite of being faithful to the original observation principles and motivations, there have been important improvements on the spectroheliograph throughout the years. In the present century it was possible to install a CCD3 camera for the acquisition of digital Sun images, being the photographic film system definitively replaced on March 2007. The spectroheliograms have been used throughout the last decades on scientific and research work. In 2007 the team has established a project named ?Sun4all? (http://www.mat.uc.pt/sun4all/) where the solar observations are used for learning activities of Junior High Schools and High Schools. The project rests on the asset of over 30,000 spectroheliograms that are kept in the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Coimbra, as a result of a work of over 80 years of daily solar observations that started in 1926 (http://www.astro.mat.uc.pt/novo/observatorio/site/arquivo.html). This project has been applied since 2007 in numerous schools in Portugal and in other European countries. In the framework of the Discover the COSMOS project the team offers access to the Sun4all digital repository and supports the users communities to design activities based on the use of the Solar images.

The Faulkes Telescope Project (FTP) provides access to 1,500 hours of observing time on two 2-metre class telescopes located in Hawaii (FT North; Haleakala Observatory, Maui) and Australia (FT South; Siding Spring Observatory). This time is dedicated to education and public outreach, through the Dill Faulkes Educational Trust. FTP (http://faulkes-telescope.com) is based at University of Glamorgan, and is an educational and research arm of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope (LCOGT) (http://lcogt.net), based in Goleta, California. FTP has operated a UK-wide educational programme since 2004, and currently works with science education projects across Europe and further afield (e.g. USA, Russia, Israel). FTP usually has access to the telescopes Monday Friday, from 08:30-17:00 UTC, and mainly within UK school months (i.e. there is limited time available over the summer period, mid-July to end of August). The FTP provides telescope time free of charge to all UK schools, as well as other educational groups, and is able to provide its users with science and imaging projects. Many of these projects relate to the UK school?s curriculum, and some of them allow the schools to collaborate with researchers within the FT Team, and externally. The telescopes themselves are now owned and operated by LCOGT, and form the basis of a planned system consisting of 1-metre and 0.4-metre telescopes. The 1-metre instruments will form the backbone of the LCOGT Research Network, but will eventually have limited access for global educational users, and the 0.4-metre instruments will be primarily used for education and outreach (with some limited research use). FTP operates a broad range of educational programmes, with a strong emphasis on teacher training and engaging students with ?real science?. A variety of research projects are currently being run on the FTs, with schools often participating in the role of data gatherers, particularly in long-term monitoring or short-term intensive studies or Target of Opportunity requests for transient objects (e.g. GRBs, supernovae, NEOs or X-ray systems in outburst). FTP works with the Discover the COSMOS programme to ensure schools have access to 2-metre telescopes in Hawaii and Australia. In the near future, as the LCOGT network becomes available, schools will also have access to the 0.4-metre and potentially some 1-metre time as well. This will greatly increase the availability of time accessible to schools on the wider network. The team also provides guidance and support to the educational communities during the implementation of the pilots.

The Institute of Astronomy (IoA) is part of the Faculty of Physics and Chemistry within the School of the Physical Sciences of The University of Cambridge. The IoA came into being in 1972 by the amalgamation of three institutions which had developed on the site. These were the Cambridge University Observatory which was established in 1823, the Solar Physics Observatory (1912) and the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy (1967). The IoA is a department of the University of Cambridge and is engaged in teaching and research in the fields of theoretical and observational Astronomy. A wide class of theoretical problems are studied, ranging from models of quasars and of the evolution of the universe, through theories of the formation and evolution of galaxies and stars, X-ray sources and black holes. Much observational work centres around the use by staff of large telescopes abroad and in space to study quasars, galaxies and the chemical constitution of stars. A programme on the velocities of stars is conducted using the 36-inch telescope in Cambridge. Instrumentation development is also an important area of activity, involving charge coupled devices and detector arrays for rapid recording of very faint light and the design and construction of novel spectrographs. The Institute comprises about 60 postdoctoral staff, 50 graduate students and 20 support staff. There are close links with the Cavendish Astrophysics Group (formerly the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory) as well as with the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, all of which are conducting complementary research programmes here in Cambridge. Of direct relevance is the role of the Institute of Astronomy as GAIA photometric data processing and science alerts centre.

LJMU is a major UK university based in Liverpool. With over 24,000 students and 1,100 staff, it is the largest university in area and the 20th largest in the UK. In 1998, LJMU created the Astrophysics Research Institute (ARI), which has since grown to become a leading player in astronomical research and education, comprising around 40 staff members and 90 students. The ARI was responsible for developing the world?s first professional robotic telescope, the Liverpool Telescope, which is located in the Canary Islands. The institute?s work in promoting this exciting resource to UK schools was recognised by a Queen?s Anniversary Prize in 2005; this is the highest accolade a university can achieve in the UK. The key ARI personnel involved with this project are principal members of the National Schools? Observatory (NSO) - a major educational resource that provides schools in the UK with online access to the Liverpool Telescope (LT). The NSO was created in 2000 to manage the 5% of LT time that was allocated to UK schools to help with the promotion of science. It currently engages with around 1,150 registered schools across the UK, whose students request a total of around 5,000 observations each year. The ARI/NSO?s commitment to the public understanding of science goes well beyond that undertaken by most astronomy departments in the UK, with NSO staff involved in various aspects of astronomy education, which includes strong links with the Institute of Physics, Royal Astronomical Society, British Science Association, Royal Observatory Greenwich, ESERO (UK). In the framework of the Discover the COSMOS project the ARI personnel supports the implementation activities and the development of eScience scenarios with data from the LT. It has to be noted that ARI personnel were core partners in the SkyWatch (www.discoveryspace.net/skywatch2007/) and COSMOS (www.cosmosportal.eu) initiatives.

Founded in 1828, Technische Universitaet Dresden (TUD) is a full-scale university with 14 faculties, covering a wide range of fields in science and engineering, humanities, social sciences and medicine. The TU Dresden has about 35.000 students and almost 4.200 permanent employees (excepting the Faculty of Medicine), 419 professors among them, and, thus, is the largest university in Saxony, today. The University emphasises interdisciplinary cooperation, and in both teaching and research its students participate early on in research. More specifically: interdisciplinary cooperation among various fields is a strength of the TUD, whose researchers also benefit from collaborations with the region's numerous science institutions - including Fraunhofer institutes, Max Planck institutes and institutes belonging to the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz society. The TUD encourages researchers who make discoveries; it watches out for their legal rights and fosters the quick transfer of new technologies and discoveries to the marketplace. In recognition of the TUD?s emphasis on applications in both teaching and research, businesses have honored the university with endowed chairs. Specifically, leading companies have established eleven endowed professorships at the university. The TUD prides itself for its international flavour and has partnerships with more than 70 universities worldwide. The Chair of Didactics of Physics provides the school relevant training scenario for pre-service teachers in physics. Furthermore, in-service teacher enhancement courses are offered to qualified teachers. The institute holds a tightly knit network of schools and science teachers. Research projects cover physics education including general aspects of teaching, and gender related tasks and projects. Research at the Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics is dedicated to the search for the fundamental principles which govern the basic building blocks of matter and their interactions. On the experimental side this covers especially the origin of mass with the ATLAS detector at CERN, and the investigation of the properties of neutrinos in several underground experiments in Gran Sasso, Italy and Sudbury, Canada. On the theoretical side Supersymmetry and other new ideas beyond the established theory of particle physics, the so-called ?Standard Model? are being developed. Besides, the institute is extremely active in science communication and outreach, with two scientific assistants coordinating large programmes for high school students and teachers: International ?Hands on Particle Physics Masterclasses? (www.physicsmasterclasses.org) and the German ?Netzwerk Teilchenwelt? (www.teilchenwelt.de), both involving also the Chair of Didactics of Physics. Both institutions further take part in a wealth of local activities of science communication like ?Saturday Morning Physics? and ?Long Night of Science?. TUD co-leads the WP2. The main task of the team is to define the pedagogical framework for the integration of the eScience activities (related to particle physics) in the school classrooms, to select best practices in astronomy, and to design the relevant Discover the COSMOS Demonstrators. TUD work also focus on the development of the eMasterclasses, that simulate the conventional Masterclasses events, allowing for every student to participate virtually in the process. eMasterclasses will be delivered to every school over the Discover the COSMOS Communities Support Environment.

The University of Birmingham is a well-established higher education institution that offers high-standard teaching in most major disciplines. The University is also one of the leading research-based universities in the UK. The School of Physics and Astronomy is one of the largest in the UK with excellent reviews for undergraduate teaching (NSS) and grade 5 in the most recent Research Assessment exercise. It has a very active Outreach programme particularly in Astronomy and Particle Physics. Some details of recent activities in this area can be found at http://www.ph.bham.ac.uk/prospective/schools/index.html. Contributions to the project are wide ranging but primarily focus on the outreach work in the University sector. The team has a lot of experience in optimising Outreach material for many different types of audiences. In the framework of the project the team is making significant contributions to a range of work packages (mainly in the design of eScience activities for particle physics using the MINERVA analysis tool and in the coordination of the outreach activities in UK) where our experience will be most effective. The team has contributed to the development of the ATLAS visualisation package which allows the detected collision products from the proton-proton collisions to be displayed in an intuitive way. This is designed to enable both specialist researchers and students to investigate the early collision data.

Ellinogermaniki Agogi (EA) is an educational organization of private law, officially recognized by the state. EA was the first Greek educational organization, which applied ODL in secondary level education in the year of 1993. It is an institutional member of EDEN (European Distance Education Network), of STEDE (Science Teacher Education Development in Europe) network and of ECSITE (European Network of Science Centres and Museums) network. Since 1998, the organization has established a devoted department, the Research and Development (R&D) Department for the design, development and implementation of research activities in education, expanding the collaboration with Universities and Research Institutions across Europe. The R&D Department acts as interface between the pedagogical research, the technological innovation and the school community. The work of the R&D Department which currently employs 15 full time researchers (7 PhD level, 8 MSc) focuses also on the following areas: a) the development of methodologies and empirical research to investigate processes of learning and knowledge acquisition in various subject-matter areas (physics, mathematics, biology, history, etc); b) the collaboration with computer science departments and artificial intelligence labs for the development of computational models and AI learning systems; c) the collaboration with Universities and private companies for the development and testing of educational software; and d) the design of technology-supported learning environments. Under this approach, EA has taken up the challenge to embed pedagogical practice that effectively uses a range of ICTs in every classroom, as well as driving up student academic outcomes across the school. The emphasis of EA is to enhance teacher creativity, supporting staff through targeted professional development and opportunities. During the last years the R&D department has coordinated and supported the participation of EA in more than 80 European (eContentPlus, ICT-PSP, SiS in FP7 and FP6, IST in FP5 and ACT in FP6, LLP-ACT, Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci) and National projects. In most of them, the main role of the research group is the design of the implementation of the proposed activities in real school environments. EA is coordinating a large network of 130 rural schools in Greece, Spain, Finland, Sweden and Romania (Rural Wings Network ? http://www.ruralwings-project.net) providing them with distance training and support through the implementation of innovative projects and activities (e.g. training in virtual classrooms, virtual visits to science centres and museums, operation of remotely controlled telescopes). EA leads the WP4 (Implementation) work and is involved in the development of the Discover the COSMOS Demonstrators and in the development of the teachers community. EA has successfully coordinated the large scale implementation of innovative methodologies in school environments in Europe in many research and demonstration projects. The research group of EA was actively involved in the ?School of tomorrow? cluster of the IST programme (FP5&FP6). In the framework of this work the group is working on the reengineering of the science laboratory of the school of tomorrow and on the science teachers training in the new era (see www.schooloftomorrow.gr), through implementations in numerous school environments in Europe.

NUCLIO is a non-profitable association of professional astrophysicists and amateur astronomers devoted to public outreach and education. The research topics of the professional astronomers encompass a variety of areas such as planetary science, galaxies and cosmology. NUCLIO has great experience in promoting outreach activities for schools and local communities. Some of NUCLIO?s activities include: School visits where telescope observations are promoted, talks prepared specially to tackle the curriculum content and hands-on activities addressing specific topics of the curriculum. Public talks on different topics with the main objective of promoting Portuguese science and scientists. Participation in activities promoted by the Ministry of Science such as: Astronomy in summer, Science Week, Space Week. Teaching Astronomy & Astrophysics courses for teachers and the general public. Training teachers in the use of new technologies for teaching science. The promotion of real research in classroom where students are introduced to the scientific method, using robotic telescopes and data mining astronomical databases. Creation and maintenance of a website in Portuguese: (http://www.portaldoastronomo.org). Promoting star parties and science fairs. NUCLIO is the Portuguese Representative of the EU-HOU, a project funded by Minerva in 2004 and has very successfully implemented the programme at a national level where it still maintains a very active teachers community. At a local level several successful projects where developed by NUCLIO with support of the Ministry of Science. In July 2008 NUCLIO hosted the annual meeting of the GHOU Association. With nearly 30 countries represented and with support of the British Council the institution have organized a very profitable workshop where teachers and promoters of all the participating nations could share their new resources and learn important tools. In 2009 NUCLIO supported the national coordination of the International Year of Astronomy ( IYA2009) promoting training for teachers in 11 different sessions spread all over the country. Around 300 teachers were trained under the support of the Portuguese Ministry of Science for IYA2009. NUCLIO also hosted the coordination of the Galileo Teacher Training Programme (GTTP), a cornerstone of IYA2009, that successfully reached over 5000 teachers around the globe in 2009 and named astronomy education representatives in nearly 100 nations. NUCLIO has a large expertise in teacher training on the use of new technologies for science education. It has also a large expertise in applying hands-on resources for promoting an inquiry-based teaching of specific themes. It is the Portuguese partner of the EU-HOU and Coordinating institution for GTTP and has been promoting training sessions since 2004. It has also collaborated in the organization of sessions in other countries. The CERN team is coordinating International Implementation activities. NUCLIO has two main roles in the project a) to coordinate the Discover the COSMOS community building process and b) to integrate the Discover the COSMOS Demonstrators in the international and national Galileo teacher training programmes in which about 5,000 teachers per year are participating, with the goal of bringing the excitement of astronomy research into classrooms in an intuitive way.

The ?Hellenic Association of Science Journalists, Science Writers and Science Communicators ? Science View? is an urban, no profit ? speculative organization established in Athens. Its already a ?EUSJA - European Union of Science Journalists' Associations? member, which is established in Strasburg, France, and has members in more than 30 countries around Europe. Its plan is to develop communication activities between the scientific community and the society so that scientific knowledge, related to communication science and technological equipment, is distributed to the public. In addition, of outmost importance is to create contacting among the members of Science Unions, the scientists and the journalists. The Association is a meeting point for the Greek science journalists and their colleagues that work in Europe through the EUSJA Network. Its main goal is to gather scientific information and to develop a forum, in which discussions concerning scientific subjects, journalism and European issues, take place. The Association is accessible to journalists, writers and communication specialists. Working groups have been created already, that deal with specific scientific matters and try to find out which is the best way to create a scientific information distributing network, so it results in diffusion of knowledge - emitted by scientists ? to the society. Moreover, the main goal is to reach some reports, methods and guidelines indicating how it is possible to make scientific issues easily accessible and popular to the public, through articles and specialized activities. The Science View is coordinating the dissemination activities in cooperation with BMUKK. In addition, acts as an intermediate for the involvement of the rest members of EUSJA.

Dep. IT Systems for Educational Purposes of BMUKK is collaborating, organising, supporting and managing: soft- and hardware planning, support for classes and thematic educational issues, change agent functions for IT, IT&Gender, new technologies and MM applications for the use in education, ergonomics, evaluation and documentation of professional literature, SW issue for humanities. The main platform is ViS:AT - Virtual School Austria: http://www.virtuelleschule.at, which ensures the quality of resources for kids, youngsters, teachers and adults on the Internet. BMUKK collaborates with: all types of schools in Austria and EU; universities; colleges; teacher training institutions; companies, museums, NGOs, NPOs, etc. The team has expertise in development of material for the practical application in the school environment on basis of curriculum material: LOs; Courses; cataloguing of eContent; etc. BMUKK is providing e-training services to teachers in formal, informal and nonformal self regulated education with New Technologies. Evaluation with state of the art technologies are main issues: like interactive boards, mobile learning, etc.

Trainings: BMUKK is responsible for the organisation of face to face and Online-Training activities for schools in Austria and will involve relevant stakeholders in the training activities. BMUKK supports the designing and implementation of validation activities, gives input to user requirements for eTrainings and needs and organises pilot trials.

Conferences: BMUKK organises many conferences regularly in different provinces, e.g. BildungOnline, eLearning Conference, FutureLearning, Conference of the Subject Oriented Portals. These networking activities enable dissemination, focus groups for evaluation and validation and synergies to other projects. Results of former and existing ICT-projects will be a main focus for future recommendations.

eContent: According to the project criteria BMUKK invites schools and organisations (e.g. museums, NPOs, NGOs, ministries, universities, etc.) to provide existing eContent. With respect to quality criteria it collects, categorizes and publishes this eContent to the ViS:EU exchange portal and gives recommendations to adapt the materials for repositories, further use and sustainability. BMUKK is responsible for the validation work. The work is based on the VALNET standard approach that BMUKK has successfully tested in numerous school communities. BMUKK also co-leads with SV the dissemination work focusing mainly to educational policy makers and curriculum developers.

The Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) was founded in 1499, and has had a major impact in the scientific and cultural history of Spain. UCM is the largest University in Spain, with 83.694 students in 2010/2011. The UCM has about 3500 permanent lecturing staff and its research facilities include 38 research institutes, 4 university hospitals, 17 centers to support research activities (from supercomputation facilities to laboratory support) and a large library, including a historical fond with about 193,000 volumes. Much more detailed information can be found in www.ucm.es. The University has a dedicated office, OTRI (www.ucm.es/info/otri), to handle administrative issues and support the University staff in applications to European I+D+I programs and dedicated office for the ERASMUS program with a dedicated in-plant at the Faculty of Mathematics.

DISCOSMOS' partner in Spain is associated to the AEGORA research group within the Complutense University. AEGORA (Astronomía Espacial y Gestión Óptima de Recursos Astronómicos, by its name in Spanish)'s research is focused in space astronomy and optimization. The official creation of the group comes from a close cooperation on researches at the International Ultraviolet Explorer European Observatory, sited at Villafranca del Castillo (Madrid) and UCM researchers.
Now-a-days, the main activity of the group is focused in the World Space Observatory - Ultravioleta (WSO-UV) project, an international telescope that will be launched in 2015 to guarantee observatory-type access in the ultraviolet range of astronomers after the end of the Hubble Space Telescope mission. AEGORA works as well in the coordination of an European network of ultraviolet astronomy, NUVA (Red Europea de Astronomía Ultravioleta, by its name in Spanish). More information can be found in http://www.mat.ucm.es/~aegora/ as well as in www.wso-uv.es/index.php/ and in www.ucm.es/info/nuva.
UCM, through AEGORA project, hosts the Spanish node of Hands On Universe (HOU). 2009 was the International Astronomy Year and HOU seized the opportunity to create a structured programme in order to bring the educational community closer to sciences. The aim of this platform is to renew science teaching in secondary schools introducing teenagers in astronomical research.

More information about HOU-Spain can be found following the next link: http://www.houspain.com/. To get to know HOU at an European level, the following link will guide you: http://www.euhou.net/. The EU-HOU project is a collaboration of hundreds of teachers and scientists from 14 countries with the purpose of creating a way for students to get excited by science, primarily through the use of astronomy.
Though 2009 was an important year for astronomy, UCM has acted as the Spanish coordinator for EU-HOU since 2004 when the project was born at European-wide scale and funded by the EU through the MINERVA-SOCRATES program. UCM coordinates the Spanish activities of teachers interested on implementing IBSE (inquiry-based science education) at schools in the area of Astronomy and space research.
HOU-Spain has developed educational tools such as the e-learning program "The Solar System as a MathLab", the set of exercises entitled "The Moon as a Mathlab" and a wiki based interface, HOU-wiki, to handle the interaction with Spanish teachers.

Located on a 200 acre site in the hills above the University of California's Berkeley campus, Berkeley Lab holds the distinction of being the oldest of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Laboratories. It is managed by the University of California. The Lab?s legacy began in the summer of 1928, when a 27-year-old physics professor named Ernest O. Lawrence was wooed from his faculty position at Yale University to a job at the University of California?s Berkeley campus. While at Berkeley, Lawrence invented a unique particle accelerator called a cyclotron which would prove his hypothesis: whirling charged particles around to boost their energies, then casting them toward a target is an effective way to smash open atomic nuclei. The cyclotron would go on to win Lawrence the 1939 Nobel Prize in physics and usher in a new era in the study of subatomic particles. Through his work, Lawrence launched the modern era of multidisciplinary, team science. In August of 1931, when he created the Radiation Laboratory in a modest building on the Berkeley campus, Lawrence began recruiting a brilliant circle of colleagues from physics, chemistry, biology, engineering and medicine, whose groundbreaking teamwork would be critical to the laboratory?s legendary success. When his plans for bigger and better atom-smashing cyclotrons required more room, he moved the laboratory off campus and up to its present location in the Berkeley hills, overlooking the San Francisco Bay. After his death in 1959, the Lab was officially renamed the Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Today, Berkeley Lab continues the tradition of multidisciplinary scientific teams working together to solve global problems in human health, technology, energy, and the environment. Ten Nobelists have worked here, including the Lab?s present director Steve Chu. And countless other researchers have contributed to the Lab?s success as an institution for furthering our nation?s scientific endeavors, whether in fundamental research, science education, or technology transfer. Nuclear science: To investigate the heart of the atomic nucleus, DOE?s new Facility for Rare Isotope Beams will include the Lab?s GRETA detector, which measures the momentum and direction of gamma rays when exotic nuclei collide and fall apart, and an injector that?s twin to Berkeley Lab?s powerful ion source, VENUS. Elsewhere, Lab scientists probe the brief era of the quark-gluon plasma in the early universe with theoretical studies and key contributions to international teams like ALICE, A Large Ion Collider Experiment at CERN?s Large Hadron Collider. Beyond physics? standard model: Berkeley Lab experimentalists have had long success in designing and building the apparatus for high-energy physics, like the innermost heart of the giant ATLAS experiment at CERN?s Large Hadron Collider. Lab scientists use such tools to probe why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe, the identity of dark matter, and whether there are extra dimensions of space.