SSAA News No 60
Newsletter of the SSAA/SGAA from 31 July 2025
1. Invitation to the SSAA GA held Oct 9-10, 2025 in Locarno organized by IRSOL - Call for abstracts - Deadline August 31, 2025
With this newsletter all members of the Swiss Society for Astrophysics and Astronomy are kindly invited to attend the General Assembly 2025.
The call for abstracts for the science session is open until August 31, 2025: https://data.irsol.usi.ch/ssaa25/
Registration is open until September 15, 2025
The GA will be held at the “Aula magna at Liceo di Locarno”.
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. The detailed programme will be communicated closer to the event.
Note: There will be the Swiss EST workshop at the same location https://www.sviss.ch/est25/. The goal of the workshop is to discuss about possible Swiss contributions to the European Solar Telescope (EST) project. All interested people are welcome to participate.
2. The Edith Alice Müller Awards 2025
We are delighted to announce that the Edith Alice Müller Award 2025 has been given to:
Mara Attia, based on their PhD thesis: Coupling the Secular Dynamical and Atmospheric Evolution of Close-in Exoplanets, and
Andrea Francesco Battaglia based on his PhD thesis: The rising Solar Orbiter/STIX era: new insights on microflares and early flare emission.
Our warm congratulations for the awardees for their outstanding achievement. They will present their thesis work at the upcoming GA.
3. New Treasurer
Last month our Treasurer Brice-Oliver Demory stepped down. Herewith, it is our great pleasure to thank Brice-Oliver for his team spirit and impactful contributions as member of the SSAA committee. We have appointed Daniel Kitzmann from Uni Bern as interim treasurer. The new treasurer will be confirmed at the next GA.
4. 2nd call for MERAC Funding and Travel Awards – Deadline: September 30, 2025
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/funding/merac/past-merac-awards
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 are accepted 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.
5. Saas-Fee Course 2027 – Deadline October 9, 2025 (at GA)
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.
6. Call for Volunteers to host the SSAA GA in 2026 – Deadline October 9, 2025 (at GA)
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).
7. UN/SKAO Workshop on Dark and Quiet Skies - Call for abstracts - Deadline 31 August, 2025
The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs and the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) are jointly organising the UN/SKAO workshop on Dark and Quiet Skies for Science and Society that will be held at the United Nations Office at Vienna and online, from 9 to 11 December 2025.
The purpose of this workshop is to provide an overview of activities carried out by both astronomers and satellite stakeholders to minimize the impact of satellites on astronomical sciences. In addition, the legal and regulatory aspects of keeping skies dark and quiet will be explored. The workshop will bring together the community of astronomers who are experts on this topic, stakeholders from the satellite industry that develop or employ mitigation measures to reduce their impact on astronomy, and the diplomatic community preparing technical and legal contributions to the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) and its subcommittees.
For more details, please see the UNOOSA webpage: https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/psa/schedule/2025/UN-SKAO-dark-and-quiet-skies-2025.html
More details, with a link to the registration form, are available on the workshop webpage and the call for abstracts is open until 31 August 2025.
8. Call for Sessions at EAS annual meeting 2026 in Lausanne – Deadline September 30, 2025
European Astronomical Society’s annual meeting 2026 will be held in Lausanne (29 June to 3 July 2026) Call for sessions at the EAS 2026 is open - deadline September 30, 2025. For more details: https://eas.unige.ch/EAS_meeting/call.jsp
9. Call for EAS 2026 Prizes – Deadline October 31, 2025
The call for nominations for EAS Prizes and the new EAS Fellows is now open.
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
10. 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.
11. 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: .
Thank you!