About the Workshop

The institutional members of the Georgian-German Science Bridge (GGSB) - Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ), GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, Helmholtz Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf e.V. (HZDR) from Germany and the Georgian partner universities (Agricultural University of Georgia (AUG), Ilia State University (ISU), Georgian Technical University (GTU), Kutaisi International University (KIU) and Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU)) - will hold the 10^th Georgian-German School and Workshop in Basic Science (GGSWBS), between September 9 - 13, 2024. The event marks the 20^th anniversary of the GGSB. It will be conducted under the title: "The First 20 years – achievements of GGSB and its SMART|Labs", celebrating by a one-week Science Fest its development during the first two decades in science, education and personnel and cultural exchange.

Background: For more than 20 years, the Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ) successfully cooperates with a consortium of Georgian Universities (TSU, GTU, ISU, and AUG). It started at the beginning of nineties with a collaboration between the Nuclear Physics Institute (IKP) of FZJ and a small group of TSU scientists (HEPI TSU), based on a joint research program at the COSY accelerator in Jülich. This international collaboration has been extended later by other FZJ institutes: Energy and Climate Research (IEK), Neuroscience and Medicine (INM), Bio- and Geo Sciences Research (IBG), and Electronics and Mechanical Engineering (ZEA). Recently from the Georgian side this cooperation was joined by the Kutaisi International University (KIU), from Germany GSI and HZDR have entered.

The Georgian-German Science Bridge (GGSB) comprises 3 pillars: (i) Education: Educational programs for Georgian students are pursued in form of various internship programs at the Helmholtz Centres (FZJ, GSI and HZDR) and block-lectures in Georgia (GTU, TSU), starting in 2013; (ii) Research: Ever since the establishment of the GGSB, Georgian students together with their supervisors are actively involved in the diverse common research for their Master and PhD projects in Germany; (iii) Knowledge transfer: Reintegrating young, well trained Georgian scientists into the Georgian university structures by the foundation of so called SMART|Labs (SMART stands for Science, Medicine, Applied Research and Technology). GGSB attaches great importance to this possibility: with the support of the Georgian government (Ministry of Education and Science via the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation) two SMART|Lab's were established (at TSU) in the fields of Nuclear Physics (SMART|EDM_Lab) and Atmospheric Chemistry & Simulations (SMART|AtmoSim_Lab) in 2017; Jülich has provided part of the scientific equipment. The SMART|Digital_Lab (at AUG) started in 2022 with financial support of VW foundation and the SMART|Medical Imaging_Training Lab (at GTU) was founded in 2023, supported by BMBF.

The Science Fest will comprise two parts: (i) Status and future of GGSB at TSU and GTU (Tbilisi) - A history and major achievements of the cooperation will be presented together with an outlook to future plans and strategy; (ii) Scientific workshop at KIU (Kutaisi) - Previous and current students and scientists will present results of the joint research within the GGSB, and key-note talks on topical issues (e.g., hadron therapy, medical imaging, machine learning and artificial intelligence appications in science) will be envisaged.