Annual Gathering
Please see the SUPA News section for upcoming events, and links for registration.
For details of previous events run by SUPA, please see our Past Events pages.
The Scottish Funding Council recently awarded strategic funds to a joint initiative involving the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA), Scottish Universities Life Science Alliance (SULSA) and Scottish Imaging Network (SINAPSE) to develop and expand academic, clinical and industrial collaborations in Scotland around optical imaging.
Proof of Principle funding up to £5,000 is now available to support research or partnership activity with industry in order to drive novel optical imaging research in the context of life sciences and medicine. Projects that bridge the different research pools are strongly encouraged.
Closing date for applications is Friday 26 April 2019 at Noon. More information about this call, and the application form, can be found here.
Outstanding academics and celebrated professionals join Scotland’s National Academy
Scotland's National Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), has announced the names of 62 people becoming Fellows of the RSE this year. Hailing from sectors that range from the arts, business, science and technology and academia, they join the current RSE Fellowship whose varied expertise supports the advancement of learning and useful knowledge in Scottish public life.
SUPA is particularly pleased to note a number of its members being recognised:
Prof Stuart Reid, University of Strathclyde
Prof Robert Hadfield, University of Glasgow
Prof Gail McConnell, University of Strathclyde
Prof Jan Skakle, University of Aberdeen
In addition, Dr John Nicholls of M Squared Lasers has also been awarded Fellowship.
For information on all of this year's awardees, please visit the RSE news pages.
Weds 29 May, Technology & Innovation Centre, Strathclyde
The SUPA Gathering has built a reputation over the past 4 years as a showcase and celebration of world class physics research in Scotland. As well as talks highlighting some of the latest advances in physics research across all of the SUPA Themes, the programme offers examples of career opportunities for early career researchers, poster competition, and exhibition.
The 2019 Annual Gathering was very well attended, with 300 people from across SUPA universities and partners coming to the Technology & Innovation Centre at the University of Strathclyde.
This year's exhibition focussed on the impact of physics from both industry and academia, with over 20 exhibitors eager to talk to participants about the impact of their research and products.
Scottish innovation and collaboration have been highlighted in a new video produced for the APS March Meeting in Boston. Featuring interviews with our academics, researchers and the Chief Scientific Advisor for Scotland, the video highlights our strengths across our seven research themes, and our Graduate School, providing advanced training for our doctoral students.
The APS March meeting is held each year in Boston, USA, for more than 11,000 attendees from academia, industry and major labs.
See the full video here.
Paul Soler, Professor in Experimental Particle Physics at the University of Glasgow, said in a statement: “This is the first time that a baryon has been conclusively observed containing two heavy charm quarks and is a new frontier in understanding the strong force that binds quarks together.” [Newsweek]
On the 6th of July 2017, Dr Patrick Spradlin, a SUPA physicist from the University of Glasgow, announced the discovery of a new baryon, called the Ξcc++, at the European Physical Society High Energy Physics (EPS-HEP) Conference held in Venice (Italy). The analysis was carried out by SUPA physicists working on the LHCb experiment at CERN. The findings are published in Physical Review Letters.
On the 4th January 2017 a third gravitational wave signal (GW170104) was detected by both of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors further establishing the era of gravitational wave astronomy .
The highlight of the year is the SUPA Annual Gathering, a showcase and celebration of physics in Scotland.
The 2025 Annual Gathering took place in Dundee University on 28 May 2025.
The 2024 Annual Gathering took place in the ARC building, University of Glasgow on 22 May 2024.
In 2023, The SUPA Annual Gathering 2023 took place at the TIC building on George Street at the University of Strathclyde. It was held on Tuesday, 16 May 2023.
In 2022, the Annual Gathering was held in person, at the John McIntyre Conference Centre, with the talks streamed online and recorded.
This week, the LHCb experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider announced the discovery of five new resonances (very short-lived particles), known as excited Ωc (Omega_c) baryons. Baryons are composed of three fundamental particles called quarks. Well-known examples of baryons are the protons and neutrons that are found in atomic nuclei. A proton is made of two “up” quarks and one “down” quark, bound together via the strong nuclear force. The Ωc baryons are similar, but they are made from two “strange” quarks and one “charm” quark. These are like heavier (i.e., more massive) versions of the up and down quarks. The Ωc baryons do not exist inside atomic nuclei and can only be produced on earth in certain particle physics experiments such as the CERN Large Hadron Collider.