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Rationale for the IRA/INAF contribution to JIVE
Huib Jan van Langevelde, director JIVE
Version 1.1, 16 October 2007
Introduction
This document was prepared in the process of defining the MoU between the JIVE
partners for the period 2008‐2012. It describes the current level of participation of
IRA/INAF in JIVE, and the return that Italian astronomy enjoys from this investment. It
shows that the current level of participation of Italy in the EVN and JIVE is easily
justifiable. In fact, through the European projects that JIVE raises and carries out on
behalf of the EVN, this investment has at least double return. Italian astronomers are
leading the EVN in getting science out of this facility and IRA staff members are
intensively involved in the technical projects to further enhance the EVN and JIVE.
Background
The European VLBI Network (EVN) is an array of radio telescopes located within
Europe (and beyond) that conducts Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI)
observations of cosmic radio sources. EVN data are processed (correlated) centrally at
the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE), located in Dwingeloo, the Netherlands. JIVE
was originally funded by 7 different international organisations (ASTRON‐NL,
IRA/INAF‐IT; IGN‐ES, MPIfR‐DE, NWO‐NL, STFC‐UK and OSO‐SE) to which recently
Chinese (in 2006) and French (from 2008) agencies have joined. It also receives support
from European Space Agency and various EC programmes, including RadioNet and
EXPReS. This latter programme focuses on the introduction of e‐VLBI and JIVE is the
coordinator of this high profile activity.
The EVN operates 12 weeks per year (split into 3 block sessions) with the Italian radio
telescopes at Medicina and Noto playing a major role. Additionally, the Medicina
telescope is one of the corner stones of the e‐VLBI project and participates very
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