Following the ESO Scientific and Technical Committee recommendation, the process started in 2024 with the call, selection and approval of the KMOS Spectroscopic Public Surveys is now completed and resulted in two public survey projects, EMPOWER (extragalactic) and VVVX-GalCen Spectroscopic survey (galactic). These two surveys are now starting their data acquisition since January 2026 and will collect data over the next three years. The approved survey management plans detailing the observing strategies, data reductions and data releases are published on the ESO web pages.

This international conference, jointly organised by ESO, INAF - Arcetri and Macquarie University, aims to bring together the diverse scientific communities developing and preparing to exploit these instruments. Although each facility has unique strengths - MAVIS pushing diffraction-limited performance into the visible on an 8-m telescope, and the ELT instruments delivering unmatched infrared sensitivity and resolution on a 39-m aperture - their science cases are deeply complementary.

The stellar 'Initial Mass Function' (IMF) is a fundamental observable and a crucial component for the understanding of a vast range of astrophysical processes. It is suspected to have its roots in the mass distribution of dense molecular cloud cores resulting from molecular cloud fragmentation, but what shapes this 'Core Mass Function' (CMF) and how core masses really relate to stellar masses, remains unclear. This ESO workshop will summarize and discuss recent observational and theoretical progress on these questions and explore ways forward with ongoing progress in instrumentation (e.g., ALMA upgrade, ELT(s)). The deadline for abstract submissions is 15 February 2026.

ESO is pleased to announce the second and final Phase3 data release of the Large Programme SUPER - SINFONI Survey for Unveiling the Physics and the Effect of Radiative feedback, programme id 196.A-0377, PI V. Mainieri. It uses SINFONI in Seeing-Enhancer mode to study Active Galactic Nuclei at z=2-2.5. The AO assisted observations reach a PSF of 0.2 arcsec in K-band.

Olivier Chesneau, one of the most active and prolific members of the optical interferometry community, passed away in May 2014, at the age of 41. To honour his work in this field, his home institute, the Laboratoire J.-L. Lagrange at the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in France, and ESO established a prize in his memory. Since 2015, the prize has been awarded biennially for the best PhD thesis completed in the field of high angular resolution optical astronomy.

The VLTI Community Days meeting will take place at ESO Garching on the 11, 12 and 13 of May 2026 (participation available via MS Teams). The meeting will be dedicated to the current status, scientific exploitation, and future evolution of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) and the programme will cover recent and ongoing developments at the VLTI, with a strong focus on GRAVITY+ and ASGARD, as well as the status and prospects for MATISSE and PIONIER. The meeting will combine technical and operational updates, with science talks, together with time for discussion.

Observations with the VLT, VLTI, and ALMA have pioneered exoplanet science over the past decade. With upcoming results from ESA missions such as Gaia, PLATO, and Ariel, exoplanet research is entering a transformative era of large-scale characterisation surveys. This ESO workshop will bring the community together to explore how current ESO facilities together with powerful archival resources, can best complement exoplanet demographics, atmospheres, and planet formation at the dawn of population-scale studies.

The User Support Department would like to once again thank all Principal Investigators and their Phase 2 delegates who took part in the 2025 online Paranal Service Mode User Satisfaction Survey. A total of 101 responses were received in this targeted campaign. As in past years, we have followed up by e-mail with respondents who provided detailed comments and identified themselves. A summary report based on the latest survey is now available.

With the release of the La Silla Paranal telescope schedule, the Phase 2 preparation for runs scheduled in Service Mode begins. The deadline for the submission of the Phase 2 material for Period 117 is Tuesday, 17 March 2026. P117 is the first yearly period for observations between 1 May 2026 and 30 April 2027.

The time allocation process for ESO telescopes for Period 117 has been completed. This was based on the scientific evaluation of the Distributed Peer Review (DPR) and the Observing Programmes Committee (OPC), who met in November 2025 to provide recommendations to the ESO Director General. A total of 13070 hours of (Designated) Visitor Mode and Service Mode observations (excluding filler programmes) were allocated on the VLT/VLTI, the 3.6-metre, and NTT telescopes.