Reorganization of Italian CNR Institutes

February 20, 2010 (HE40).  On February 1st, 2010, the Italian CNR Institute INFM (Istituto Nazionale per la Fisica della Materia) was formally closed. On the same day, three new Institutes were created inside CNR. One of these is SPIN, an acronym for “SuPerconductors, oxides and other INnovative materials and related devices”. SPIN includes previous INFM structures Coherentia (Naples), LAMIA (Genova), and SUPERMAT (Salerno).  This Institute will have about 50 CNR staff researchers and an equivalent number of staff University Associates.  During the organization phase, SPIN will be directed by Prof. Ruggero Vaglio, formerly INFM Director Delegate for Coherentia.

The other two new institutes are:

• NANO: Nanoscience and nanotechnology Including S3 (Modena), NEST (Pisa), NNL (Lecce),
• IOM : Large scale facilities (previous INFM-TASC, DEMOCRITOS (Trieste) and SLACS (Cagliari).

This reorganization concludes changes initiated by the CNR President, Luciano Maiani (previous CERN director), aimed at full integration of the INFM structures inside CNR.

At a later time we hope to obtain from SPIN a more detailed highlight(s) describing its activities and plans for the future.