MIST

Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial

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RAS Awards

The Royal Astronomical Society announced their award recipients last week, and MIST Council would like to congratulate all that received an award. In particular, we would like to highlight the following members of the MIST Community, whose work has been recognised:
  • Professor Nick Achilleos (University College London) - Chapman Medal
  • Dr Oliver Allanson (University of Birmingham) - Fowler Award
  • Dr Ravindra Desai (University of Warwick) - Winton Award & RAS Higher Education Award
  • Professor Marina Galand (Imperial College London) - James Dungey Lecture
Full details can be found here: https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/royal-astronomical-society-unveils-2023-award-winners.

New MIST Council 2021-

There have been some recent ingoings and outgoings at MIST Council - please see below our current composition!:

  • Oliver Allanson, Exeter (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2024 -- Chair
  • Beatriz Sánchez-Cano, Leicester (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2024
  • Mathew Owens, Reading (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2023
  • Jasmine Sandhu, Northumbria (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2023 -- Vice-Chair
  • Maria-Theresia Walach, Lancaster (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2022
  • Sarah Badman, Lancaster (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2022
    (co-opted in 2021 in lieu of outgoing councillor Greg Hunt)

Charter amendment and MIST Council elections open

Nominations for MIST Council open today and run through to 8 August 2021! Please feel free to put yourself forward for election – the voting will open shortly after the deadline and run through to the end of August. The positions available are:

  • 2 members of MIST Council
  • 1 student representative (pending the amendment below passing)

Please email nominations to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by 8 August 2021. Thank you!

Charter amendment

We also move to amend the following articles of the MIST Charter as demonstrated below. Bold type indicates additions and struck text indicates deletions. Please respond to the email on the MIST mailing list before 8 August 2021 if you would like to object to the amendment; MIST Charter provides that it will pass if less than 10% of the mailing list opposes its passing. 

4.1  MIST council is the collective term for the officers of MIST and consists of six individuals and one student representative from the MIST community.

5.1 Members of MIST council serve terms of three years, except for the student representative who serves a term of one year.

5.2 Elections will be announced at the Spring MIST meeting and voting must begin within two months of the Spring MIST meeting. Two slots on MIST council will be open in a given normal election year, alongside the student representative.

5.10 Candidates for student representative must not have submitted their PhD thesis at the time that nominations close.

SSAP roadmap update

The STFC Solar System Advisory Panel (SSAP) is undertaking a review of the "Roadmap for Solar System Research", to be presented to STFC Science Board later this year. This is expected to be a substantial update of the Roadmap, as the last full review was carried out in 2012, with a light-touch update in 2015.

The current version of the SSAP Roadmap can be found here.

In carrying out this review, we will take into account changes in the international landscape, and advances in instrumentation, technology, theory, and modelling work. 

As such, we solicit your input and comments on the existing roadmap and any material we should consider in this revision. This consultation will close on Wednesday 14 July 2021 and SSAP will try to give a preliminary assessment of findings at NAM.

This consultation is seeking the view of all members of our community and we particularly encourage early career researchers to respond. Specifically, we invite:

Comments and input on the current "Roadmap for Solar System Research" via the survey by clicking here.

Short "white papers" on science investigations (including space missions, ground-based experimental facilities, or computing infrastructure) and impact and knowledge exchange (e.g. societal and community impact, technology development). Please use the pro-forma sent to the MIST mailing list and send your response to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Quo vadis interim board

 

A white paper called "Quo vadis, European space weather community" has been published in J. Space Weather Space Clim. which outlines plans for the creation of an organisation to represent the European space weather community.
Since it was published, an online event of the same name was organised on 17 March 2021. A “Quo Vadis Interim Board” was then set up, to establish a mechanism for this discussion, which will go on until June 21st.

The Interim Board is composed of volunteers from the community in Europe. Its role is to coordinate the efforts so that the space weather (and including space climate) European community can:

  1. Organise itself
  2. Elect people to represent them

To reach this goal, the Interim Board is inviting anyone interested in and outside Europe to join the “Quo Vadis European Space Weather Community ” discussion forum.

Eligible European Space Weather Community members should register to the “Electoral Census” to be able to vote in June for the final choice of organisation.

This effort will be achieved through different actions indicated on the Quo Vadis webpage and special Slack workspace.

Notes from MIST Council telecon 6/9/12

6 September 2012, 09:35-11:00

Participants: Emma Woodfield, David Southwood, Rob Fear, Mike Hapgood, Mario Bisi (from 10:40)

  1. Autumn MIST meeting
    1. In RAS Lecture Theatre on 30 November
    2. Rob and Emma will act as organisers and issue call soon
    3. Invite Tim Horbury to give keynote talk on TRIO-CINEMA (cubesat to launch very soon, ULF wave studies)
    4. Think on other options for another keynote talk and circulate ideas to MIST Council by Monday 10th
  2. Dungey Lecture and associated meetings
    1. First Dungey lecture will be given at the RAS ordinary meeting on 11 January 2013, after the specialist meeting organised by Mark and Mervyn ("Integrated Atmospheric and Space Science")
    2. RAS will agree choice of first lecturer at Council meeting on 12 October
    3. There will also be a separate meeting to celebrate Jim's 90th birthday – on 10 January in Geol Soc lecture theatre. Programme to be arranged once the Dungey lecturer is known.
    4. David will prepare a note about these events – for distribution to MIST list.
  3. Geophysics Forum
    1. RAS and other Learned Societies are organising a Geophysics Forum similar to Astronomy Forum, a forum where heads of departments can talk with funding bodies: NERC plus HEFCE and its siblings
    2. Duncan Wingham (NERC CEO) is supporting this
    3. There will be two fora – essentially one for fluids (oceanography, atmospheric science, STP, …) and one for solids (internal geomagnetism, solid earth geophysics, …)
    4. For MIST we will need to watch the fluid/solid interface in terms of geomagnetism, e.g. groups like Liverpool and BGS.
    5. Main membership will be university departments. Letters of invitation have now gone out to HoDs.
    6. But invite RC centes (BAS, BGS, RAL Space) and Met Office as observers
    7. Fora attendance needs to be kept to level (say 30) that enables effective meetings. So may need care where there are multiple groups in one university, e.g. UCL/MSSL. This has been an issue in Astronomy Forum.
  4. NAM2013
    1. Mike will contact St Andrews to check the state of their planning – and will cc Rob Massey at RAS. He will also note our views about the need for a good poster session and clear prior rules on abstract submission – and explore if there is scope for a rich programme of MIST sessions. If we can do that, we don’t need a separate MIST event in the Spring, especially given the Dungey Lecture and associated meetings in January.
    2. Depending on this response, Mike will then encourage MIST community to think about sessions for St Andrews NAM.
  5. Face-to-face meeting
    1. Mike will poll to find dates for a face-to-face MIST Council meeting soon after 12 October.
  6. Website
    1. Need to update current pages. Rob will see Andrew Walsh this weekend and ask if it is now possible to authorise other MIST people to add items using the RAS Content Management System.
  7. Rishbeth Prize
    1. Mike will check with Mike Cruise if he can fund a third prize this year so we can deal with the tie in the voting