National Institute for Laser, Romania

Sporea, Dan 
Head Laser Metrology and Standardisation Laboratory
Laser Metrology and Standardisation Laboratory, National Institute for Laser, Plasma and Radiation Physics
Magurele, Atomistilor St. No.409, RO-76900, Romania
sporea@ifin.nipne.ro
Tel: +40 21 457 44 89, 
http://

Our Institute is coordinating at national level the network "Hands-on Science", a project financially supported by the EU's Comenius programme. We are working for this project from 2003, and part of the first year results were presented at the NATO Advanced Workshop held last year in Hungary. Considering our vast experience with EU's projects both on the research side and on the educational side (PHARE, Leonadro da Vinci, Comenius, PRAQ III, EURATOM) we are confident that we can contribute to the objectives of the Network of Youth Excellence. Another argument to support our application is given by the good contact we have at national level with numerous high schools and secondary schools. I would like to mention few of the activities we are coordinating in the frame of the Comenius project: - the promotion, along with other groups in Romania (from the "Politehnica" University and the University of Bucharest), of the use and training on virtual instrumentation in high schools laboratories, this type of education being a premiere at European level; - the organization of itinerant experimental sessions in different parts of Romania; - the endorsement of the development by high schools teachers of virtual experiments on physics, as well as printed laboratory aids; - the support for our partner high schools to organize, at national level, "science fairs".