European and Other International Cooperation in Large-Scale Astronomical Projects

Abstract

Thank you very much for kindly inviting me to present a paper before such a distinguished audience as the members of the Astronomical Society. I feel honoured also because, as someone who is not an astronomer, I have been given the opportunity to speak to you on a technological and scientific subject with which you are far more familiar than I am — namely, European and other international cooperation in large-scale astronomical projects. I consider this subject particularly challenging because there is a great deal of public debate today about large-scale projects for European cooperation, for example, in the sectors of communications, information technology, space activities and high-energy physics. I need only mention the cooperation with the European Space Agency ESA, with CERN and in EC research projects and, more recently, also to an increasing extent, the cooperation carried out within the framework of EUREKA. It would appear that astronomy has been somewhat neglected. This is regrettable because I consider it to be an excellent field — owing to its transboundary, indeed, literally infinite dimension — for publicizing European and international cooperation in science, research and high technology.