The European Interferometry Initiative (Eii) is an open association of institutes and laboratories willing to collaborate in exploiting and developing long-baseline optical interferometry in optical/infrared astronomy, with the VLT interferometer as its leading facility. To continuously promote excellence in the field, the European Interferometry Initiative is happy to invite nominations for the EII Early Career Prize. The newly created prize will be awarded every two years (even years starting from 2024) by the EII Scientific Council to a young scientist (within four years after their PhD) who distinguished themselves for using optical-infrared long-baseline interferometry.

GRAVITY has transformed optical interferometry thanks to its unprecedented sensitivity. GRAVITY+ will yet improve VLTI sensitivity by being able to observe targets as faint as K<22 mag. This will allow significant breakthroughs across astrophysical domains as different as AGNs, young stellar objects and exoplanets. Thanks to the sensitivity boost provided by GRAVITY+ this is the time to open VLTI to explore new fundamental physics by installing a new high-resolution grism for GRAVITY+. This workshop is aimed at the wider spectroscopic, and spectro-interferometric community to gather new ideas about how to maximise the scientific exploration of the new GRAVITY high resolution capabilities, and engage with the spectroscopic community with or without interferometric experience.

The Users Committee (UC) represents ESO's astronomical community at large and acts as an advisory body to the ESO Director General on matters related to the performance, scientific access, operation and user interfaces to the La Silla Paranal Observatory and ALMA. The annual meeting of the UC is scheduled on 25 and 26 April 2024. During the UC meeting updates from ESO and feedback from the user community are exchanged and openly discussed. Each year one topic is explored in more detail and this year the Special Topic session is dedicated to Large Programmes.

The deadline for proposal submission for Period 114 (1 October 2024 - 31 March 2025) was 21 March 2024: 859 valid proposals were submitted, of which 29 are Large Programmes.  On the VLT, the most demanded ESO instrument was MUSE with a request of 407 nights, followed by ESPRESSO with 249 nights. Probably due to the increasing popularity of ESPRESSO, the pressure on UVES has now reduced to 193 nights. The demand on the still new instrument ERIS keeps increasing, and is now 159 nights. HARPS/NIRPS on the ESO 3.6-metre telescope was the most demanded instrument at La Silla, with a combined request of 239 nights. 

The Atacama Large Millimeter and submillimeter Array (ALMA) has opened the Call for Proposals (CfP) for its 11th annual cycle. For this CfP, the Joint ALMA Observatory anticipates having 4300 hours of approved science time on each of the 12-m, 7-m, and the Total Power arrays.  Together, the 7-m Array and Total Power Array form the Atacama Compact Array (ACA), also known as the Morita Array.

For the past decade, Rob was instrumental in keeping a vibrant science life at ESO and has shared his immense research background with many young scientists. He has decided that the time has come to reorient himself and returns to Edinburgh. 

The Offices for Science are very pleased to present the 2024 ESO Fellows. Here is an introduction to the Fellows due to start in Garching and Chile later this year.

The ESO research studentship programme provides an outstanding opportunity for PhD students to experience the exciting scientific environment at one of the world's leading observatories. ESO's studentship positions are open to students enrolled in a university PhD programme in astronomy or related fields. Students accepted into the programme work on their doctoral project under the formal supervision of their home university supervisor, but they come to ESO to work and study under the co-supervision of an ESO staff astronomer for a period of between six months (Chile) / one year (Germany) and two years.

In its efforts to promote the scientific exchange among astronomers, the Directorate for Science at ESO continues to provide support and funding for the organisation of scientific workshops in Santiago and in Garching as well as co-funding for some external workshops. Science workshops are an essential component of ESO's programmes and represent a unique opportunity to promote and foster ideas and collaborations within the scientific community.

Congratulations to ESO Fellow Julia V. Seidel on being awarded the prestigious 2024 MERAC Prize for the Best Doctoral Thesis in Observational Astrophysics! A well-deserved honor for her exceptional groundbreaking research on climate and atmospheric circulation regimes of exoplanets.