MISSION STATEMENT OF THE EUROPEAN SUPERCONDUCTIVITY NEWS FORUM

The online News Forum replaces the "SCENET Newsletter" which was terminated by European Union in 2006, and serves as an information dissemination tool and as a forum for discussing issues of interest to the community.  Fundamental research, applied R&D and industrial news are covered evenhandedly.  The Forum aims at filling the gap between peer-reviewed scientific publications and the latest news disseminated by commercial newsletters such as "Superconductor Week", and company newsletters.  We envisage to:

• Solicit balanced announcements of progress/breakthrough - based on papers accepted for publications, and even press conferences or new commercial product releases (no publicity is acceptable).
• Announce and highlight events of interest to members of the superconductivity community, such as workshops, conferences, prizes, awards, etc.
• Invite brief critical overviews in various categories & subcategories of ongoing European R&D written by prominent members of European superconductivity community, on the backdrop of the research worldwide (overseas contributions may also be solicited).
• Publish original technical contributions and pre-publish such contributions intended for peer-refereed journals, if the journal policy permits that.  Pre-publication of original contributions includes strictly selected papers submitted to major conferences, such as the European Conference on Applied Superconductivity (EUCAS) and the Applied Superconductivity Conference (ASC), if the conference and the publisher of its papers expressly agree to it.
• Publish regional news by inviting brief self-presentation reviews of important/prominent European R&D groups, as it was done by the "SCENET Newsletter", and also seek contributions from authors interested in presenting superconductivity activities in countries that recently (2004-2007) became members of the European Union, or participate currently in its scientific programs.
• Publish "letters to Editor" discussing controversial issues, also having to do with relations to overseas communities, paper acceptance policies, superconductivity R&D situation in countries that recently joined the European Union, etc.
• Occasionally attract attention to European and other funding opportunities, such as calls for proposals, etc.
• Respond to readers' initiatives, and be open to possible changes in community needs (the possibility of an interactive blog-like section of the Forum is under evaluation).