International Association of Physics Students

International Association of Physics Students

Abbreviation	IAPS
Formation	1987
Headquarters	Mulhouse
Location	France
Official language	English
President	Ana Milinović
Affiliations	European Physical Society
Website	http://iaps.info

The International Association of Physics Students (IAPS) is a non-profit umbrella organization for physics students associations. Its official seat is in Mulhouse, France in the headquarters of the European Physical Society. It was founded in 1987 in Debrecen, Hungary.

Introduction

IAPS is an association of physics students and student societies from around the globe, working to promote peaceful collaboration amongst its members. These are represented by national and local committees, who meet regularly to ensure the relevance of activities. Since 1987, IAPS has worked continuously to support friendly relations and collaboration between physics students. The group supports its members in their academic and professional work by discussing and acting on scientific, social and cultural issues. IAPS is a recognised non-governmental organisation run entirely by students from around the world.

IAPS runs an annual International Conference of Physics Students (ICPS), one of the biggest student organized conferences in the world. IAPS also organizes visits to global research institutions such as CERN or Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, international physics competitions, summer schools, exchange programmes and multinational meetings.

On a daily basis, IAPS is run by an Executive Committee, which is elected at the Annual General Meeting (AGM), held during the ICPS with the participation of all member societies. Most of the activities are run through the help of student volunteers, whose collaboration is necessary to ensure that all activities are offered at prices that allow participation from countries with weaker economies.

Throughout its existence, IAPS has been accumulating a number of partnerships with several international organizations. Between the most long-standing collaborators stand the European Physical Society (EPS) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). IAPS continuously pursues collaborative partnership efforts with other organizations to have a positive impact in the global scientific community.

Executive Committee

The IAPS Executive Committee (EC) is currently composed of 9 students, elected between representatives of the different member societies. The 2015/16 EC is composed of:

Title	Name	Nationality	Affiliation
President	Ana Milinović	Croatia	University of Zagreb
Vice President	Amanda Landcastle	United States	University of Purdue
Treasurer	Leon Jurčić	Croatia	University of Zagreb
Secretary	Sabrina Gronow	Germany	University of Heidelberg
IT Manager	Petteri Heliste	Finland	Aalto University
PR Manager	Henrik Siboni	Denmark	University of Southern Denmark
Officer for Members and Alumni	Anton Saressalo	Finland	University of Helsinki
Event Coordinator	Nicholai Cumbo	Malta	University of Malta
General Member	Ivana Kurečić	Croatia	University of Zagreb

Group picture at the International Conference of Physics Students 2014, held in Heidelberg, Germany.

International Conference of Physics Students

ICPS International Conference of Physics Students is the International Conference of Physics Students, which is the main event of IAPS, organized yearly by one of its member committees. The purpose of the conference is to create an opportunity for physics students from all around the world to come together, to talk about science and life, to practice presenting their research and, all in all, to have a great time.

The first ICPS was organized by students of the Eötvös Loránd University, in Budapest, Hungary in the year 1986. The event had less than fifty participants, but since then, the conference has grown considerably, nowadays bringing together more than four hundred students. The one week of the conference has its fair share of scientific, social and touristic programs. One gets a chance to listen to and give lectures on various topics in physics, to check out the laboratories of the host city, to make friends with physics students from all around the world, to get a little glimpse of the foreign cultures that gather here, and to see another part of the world.

The last International Conference of Physics Students was hosted by the German NC, the Youth section of the German Physical Society (DPG), at Heidelberg University in August 2014. The event featured about 120 student lectures, 80 posters and 7 guest speakers. It also included visits to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), some of the Max Planck Society institutes and several private companies. ICPS 2015 will be held in Zagreb (Croatia) and ICPS 2016 will be in Malta.

International tours

Since its foundation, IAPS has organised several trips to international research facilities, either directly or through its member societies. In the last five years, the EC has organised annual tours to CERN, in Geneva (Switzerland). The highly successful iaps2CERN programme usually has approximately 40 participants, representing up to 20 different nationalities. The tour usually comprises visits of the CERN exhibitions, some of the experiments currently accessible and also a visit of the United Nations offices in Geneva.

At the end of October 2014, the IAPS EC has announced the expansion of its visits programme to other research facilities. Current plans include a visit to the Gran Sasso National Laboratory (Italy) and the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (UK).

International Physics Competitions

In May 2014, the A-Eskwadraat student association (Netherlands), held the Physics League Across Numerous Countries for Kick-Ass Students (PLANCKS). IAPS contributed to its publicising and, from May 2015, this competition is officially organised as an IAPS event. In 2016, this will be hosted in Bucharest (Romania), by the local IAPS NC, the Asociatia Studentilor Fizicieni din Universitatea Bucuresti (ASFUB) .

IAPS also support other physics competitions, such as the Ortvay competition (organised by the Hungarian NC) and International Physics Tournament.

Membership

IAPS members may be national physics student organisations, called National Committees (NC), physics student association localised at one university or city, called Local Committees (LC) and individual members (IM) if none of the before are present where one studies. In a broad sense, all the members of NC-s and LC-s, as well as IM-s, are members of IAPS. Membership costs are calculated for each applicant based on the type of committee and the applicant country's GDP.

Kind of membership		Member Nation	Organisation
NC		Austria	Basisgruppe Physik der TU Graz
NC		Bosnia and Herzegovina	Udruženje studenata fizike Univerziteta u Banjoj Luci
NC		Canada	Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP)
NC		Croatia	Studentska sekcija Hrvatskog fizikalnog društva
NC		Finland	Suomen Fysiikanopiskelijat ry
NC		Germany	Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft
NC		Hungary	Magyar Fizikushallgatók Egyesülete (Mafihe)
NC		Italy	Associazione Italiana Studenti di Fisica (AISF)
NC		Netherlands	Studenten Physica in Nederland (SPIN)
NC		Norway	Norske Fysikkstudenters Forening Trodheim Norgesk teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet
NC		Portugal	Physis – Associação Portuguesa de Estudantes de Física
NC		United Kingdom and Ireland	University Student Network (USN) Institute of Physics
NC		United States	Society of Physics Students (SPS) American Institute of Physics
NC		Nepal	Nepal Students Physics Association
NC		Lithuania	Students’ Scientific Association of Physics Faculty in Vilnius University
LC		Novi Sad, Serbia	Klub studenata fizike
LC		Bucharest, Romania	Asociatia Studentilor Fizicieni din Universitatea Bucuresti (ASFUB)
LC		Craiova, Romania	Asociatia Studentilor Facultatea de Fizica din Craiova
LC		Gdansk, Poland	Koło Naukowe Studentów Fizyki, Politechnika Gdańska
LC		Kraków, Poland	IAPS LC Kraków SKNF AGH-UST
LC		Kyiv, Ukraine	APSKNU (Association of Physics Students of Kyiv National University)
LC		Malta	S Cubed – the Science Students’ Society
LC		Quezon City, Philippines	University of the Philippines Physics Association
LC		Praha, Czech Republic	Fyzikální korespondenční seminář

External links

• Official IAPS Website
• List of IAPS members
• IAPS Executive Committee