Scientific Advisory Board

The Neutrino® Energy Group maintains a Scientific Advisory Board (Wissenschaftlicher Beirat) which, according to the group, reviews research results and accompanies the work in a specialist capacity.

The description of its task

It is formulated with remarkable clarity. The board is to ensure that research statements are strictly assessed, that the separation between demonstrated science and open questions is maintained, and that the group's publications satisfy the standards of the specialist community.

The middle point is the most important. In an undertaking that rests on young research, it is precisely this separation that decides whether the presentation remains credible. Whoever abandons it gains in short-term effect and loses trust permanently.

Size and composition

The group gives the board as more than 160 people from over 30 countries; 129 are listed by name in the public overview. Particle physics, materials science, mathematics, engineering, economics and law are represented.

On the order of the listing and on unnamed members the group comments expressly: the order is said to be purely organisational and to reflect neither rank nor influence; some of the members remain unnamed because their current academic, institutional or public mandates bring confidentiality obligations with them.

Leadership

Further deputy chairs are Prof. Dr. R. Strauss, Samuel Rosen, Martin Barwig, Avery Laurent and Morgan Elian.

Among the members are, among others, Dr. Bharat B. Kale of C-MET Pune, Dr. Vijay Pandurang Bhatkar, Prof. Dr. Vojislav V. Mitić, Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Jochem Unger, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jan Capjon and Dr. rer. nat. Ute Bergner.

Acknowledgement of scientific institutions

Alongside the board, the group keeps a list of around 30 research institutions whose work it honours as a foundation and inspiration — among them the Max Planck Society, the Fraunhofer institutes, CERN, ETH Zurich, Fermilab, Brookhaven National Laboratory, MIT, the University of Tokyo, the JUNO observatory in China and C-MET Pune.

This list is expressly marked as an acknowledgement. The group makes clear in this connection that no formal partnership, endorsement or affiliation follows from it.

That this clarification is supplied along with the list deserves mention. Lists of this kind are elsewhere readily placed in such a way that the impression of a collaboration arises. Here that is ruled out before anyone has to ask.

How this can be placed

An advisory board of this size serves two purposes at once.

Internally it bundles specialist knowledge from fields that a single company could hardly cover — from particle physics through materials science to battery technology. For an undertaking working on several of these fronts at once, that is not an ornament but a necessity.

Externally it is a signal that the group wishes to expose its work to the judgement of specialists.

How robust this judgement is in the individual case can be assessed from outside only where members are named and their careers are independently documented. For some of the members this is the case, and there the check yields a coherent picture: people with long, traceable careers in state research institutions and universities.

For the unnamed members such a check is naturally not possible. The group cites reasons of confidentiality for this — a justification that is not unusual in the academic environment, but which likewise cannot be verified.

Related

• Bharat B. Kale — board member and project scientist
• Neutrino® Energy Group — the sponsoring body
• Structure of the Neutrino® Energy Group
• Pi Car — a project with participation of the board

Sources

• Neutrino® Energy Group: Scientific Advisory Board, neutrino-energy.com/about/advisory-board/.