News

The community proposal to make the SKA a priority large research infrastructure in Germany, coordinated by the Association for Data-Intensive Radio Astronomy (VdR), passed the formal review by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and entered the content-related evaluation process. The proposal concerns the contribution of Germany to the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO), an international research infrastructure under construction in South Africa and Australia. The proposal is supported by 21 universities and research institutions, and two companies from Germany.

Artist's impression of the SKA antennas. Left: for medium frequencies (SKA-MID, South Africa); right: for low frequencies (SKA-LOW, Australia).

Photo: SKAO

The German astronomical community identified the SKAO as being of top national importance and has been involved in the planning of the SKA from the very beginning. To strengthen the German position within the SKAO, we proposed important upgrades to the SKA facilities, which will provide new scientific capabilities, trigger technological innovations and economic development, and contribute to the training of young scientists and engineers.

Upon receiving the funding, we will open a new window for the SKAO by constructing a new receiver system. Once funding has been approved, we will open a new window for SKAO by developing new capabilities, which will allow new, cutting-edge tests of gravity, dark matter, and dark energy. We will significantly sharpen the SKAO’s eyesight by contributing three additional telescopes at distant locations to discern the fine details of supermassive black holes. In addition, we will upgrade the imaging pipelines by implementing correction techniques for ionospheric effects, which will revolutionise our understanding of magnetism in the Universe, from galactic phenomena to cosmic scales. Furthermore, we will empower a new gateway for real-time science by contributing new particle detectors, which will unravel the propagation of cosmic rays and their links with magnetic fields. Last but not least, we will redefine SKA data digestion by the development of data analysis for the SKA Research Centre’s Network (SRCNet), which will require a diverse team of radio astronomers, software engineers, hardware developers, mathematicians, and computer scientists. The envisaged German node of SRCNet will also provide the necessary compute and storage infrastructure and the services to host, access and process the data to the scientific needs of the German astronomical community.

The SKAO will operate under an open sky policy, with telescope time allocated through a peer-reviewed proposal process. Access to SKAO resources will be granted on the basis of scientific merit to Key Science Projects (KSP, large projects) as well as to Principal Investigator Projects (smaller projects). The fraction of accepted project proposals is intended to take into account the shares of the SKAO members with only a minor share available to scientists from non-participating countries. Most of the expertise and scientific results are expected to be generated directly by large KSP teams, where leadership roles are planned to be open only to SKAO member countries. Thus, the proposed contributions to the SKAO, planned to be executed from mid-2026 to the end of 2031, will be a game-changer for the German astronomical community.

Since its foundation some 30 years ago, scientists from Germany have been shaping the scientific direction of the SKA. They formed the third-largest group of authors contributing to the research chapters published in the latest SKA Science Book (2015). For the next SKAO General Science Meeting in Görlitz, German scientists led more than 10% of the abstract submissions, many of which became part of the scientific program. Germany is also represented in all Science Working Groups, which will coordinate the SKA's scientific vision for the coming years.

Active engagement in the SKA will strengthen our country’s competitiveness and provide a major impetus for the development of our economy and society in the coming decades. The participation of German companies in the SKA is an international distinction for Germany, reflecting the leading position of industry and innovation, and opens up promising employment and transfer opportunities.

The first evaluations of the two-tiered prioritisation process are expected in June 2025.

Further information

Contact

Representatives of the VdR:

Prof. Dr. Frank Bertoldi
+49 228-73-6789

Prof. Dr. Michael Kramer
+49 228 525 278
mkramer@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de