Kick-off of the ACME initiative

The kick-off of the Astrophysics Centre for Multimessenger studies in Europe ACME, an EU-funded project built by and for the astroparticle and the astronomy communities.

On the 16^th and 17^th of September was held in Paris the kick-off meeting for the Astrophysics Centre for Multimessenger studies in Europe - ACME. This HORIZON-INFRA-2023-SERV-01 EU-funded project coordinated by Centre national de la recherche scientifique CNRS aims to realize an ambitious coordinated European-wide optimization of the accessibility and cohesion between multiple leading astroparticle and astronomy research infrastructures, offering access to instruments, data and expertise, focused on the new science of multi-messenger astrophysics.

With 40 world-class collaborating institutions from 14 countries, ACME brings together the astroparticle and astronomy communities in a joint effort to forge a basis for strengthened long-term collaboration between these research infrastructures irrespective of location and level up access opportunities across Europe and beyond.

UNIGE participates to ACME in two ways: by providing virtual access to the services that distribute data from astronomical space missions through online interfaces; by providing training on several fields of expertise linked to transient events in astronomy. The software platform that is central in the development of one work package has been developed at UNIGE in collaboration with international partners. UNIGE have committed to maintain this access to the scientific community, to provide data for the INTEGRAL mission, of which is hosted at the UNIGE Science Data Centre, and to contribute in providing data from the space mission Polar2, developed in partnership with Chinese partners.