Deliverable 5.2: FIRST ADVISORY REPORT OF THE IAC

Transcription

1 Deliverable 5.2: FIRST ADVISORY REPORT OF THE IAC

2 Project no Project acronym: CC Project full title: Crete Center for Quantum Complexity and Nanotechnology REGPOT SEVENTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME Deliverable 5.2 First Advisory Report of the IAC Due date of deliverable: M12 Dissemination level: PU

3 First Advisory Report of the IAC Crete Center for Quantum Complexity and Nanotechnology Executive Summary Deliverable 5.2 comprises the First Advisory Report of the International Advisory Committee (IAC) of the Crete Center for Quantum Complexity and Nanotechnology (CC), an ECsupported FP7-REGPOT project (project number: ), which is located at the Physics Department of the and started its operation on September 1, The International Advisory Committee, comprises three outside senior scientists (Professors Zaanen, Buchner, and Saxena) and is a complementary body that assists the Management Committee of CC in the research directions, hirings, twinning and workshops. More precisely, the scope of the IAC is to monitor the progress made during the implementation of the CC project, and advice toward the most beneficial implementation of the project and on all aspects of the Center activities. The IAC fully assess the evolution, achievements, success and/or possible problems of the project. The 1 st Advisory Report of the IAC takes into account the evolution, achievements, success and/or possible problems of CC as revealed in the first year (first 12-months) of the lifetime of the project. IAC s have visited the CC on September 2013 (Prof. Zaanen and Prof. Saxena, attended the CC Kick-off Meeting), September 2014 (Prof. Zaanen attended the Quantum Field Theory, String Theory, and Condensed Matter Physics Workshop), and October 2014 (Prof. Saxena visited CC). The visits gave the opportunity to the IAC s to be briefed by the Coordinator (Prof. ) and the group s on research and management issues specific to the project. The IAC produces its 1st advisory report (with Prof. Saxena coordinating the preparation of the report, being in contact with the Coordinator and with the other IAC s), in the form of deliverable D5.2, providing advice for the future CC evolution. Based on the documentation provided by the CC s, in-situ visits and personal communication, the IAC has found the evolution, achievements and success of CC utterly satisfactory and following the DoW as planned; these achievements are documented in the rest of this Report. It should specifically be mentioned that during the first year, CC researchers have produced 37 research papers (working papers, papers submitted to refereed journals, published papers); 36 outgoing twinning visits and 23 incoming twinning visits have taken place; 20 outgoing visits to affiliate institutions and 4 incoming visits from affiliate institutions have taken place; 31 outgoing visits to major international research groups and conferences/workshops, and 30 incoming visits from major international research groups have taken place.

4 Research is rigorously conducted in all main research directions, namely: Research Direction 1: Magnetics and Magnetic Nanodevices Research Direction 2: Strongly Correlated Condensed Matter Systems Research Direction 3: Complex Materials and Metamaterials. One of CC s, Prof. Kyriakidis, became Vice president of the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS), and one of CC-produced papers, entitled Small-world networks of optical fiber lattices", by F. Perakis, M. Mattheakis & G., had been chosen as Journal of Optics Paper of the Week. Regarding the hired research personnel, 13 Experienced Researchers (ERs) were hired in 1 st year (comprising 7 long-term contracts and 6 short-term contracts), as well as 4 Senior Experienced Researchers (SERs); additionally (starting in the 2 nd year) 13 ERs and 1 SER will be hired. 2 administrative assistants have also been hired as well as one technician (computer specialist). Affiliate institutions and additional s have been added (Prof. Tzortzakis, Dr. Provata, Dr. Aubry). Workshops are held as planned, the website is in operation ( outreach events and post-doc days take place. The equipment procurement is in progress. However, there is one (funding) issue, which must be taken into account by the funding agency: CC has already received 60% of the EC funding contribution, with the rest (40%) planned to be deposited after the end of the lifetime of the project, following the proper rules. Given the bad economic situation of Greece, with worsening state funding of the universities, the 40% later installment (which is well over 1 million Euros) is almost impossible to be covered by the financial means. This financially stressful situation may jeopardize the so far success of CC. The aforementioned liquidity gap will occur in the third year of the lifetime of the project. IAC would like to reveal this potential problem to the European authorities in order to investigate possible modes of dealing successfully with the problem (for example, pay equipment purchases in a pay-asyou-go scheme, in excess of the 60% initial financial installment).

5 1. INTRODUCTION The CC profile Starting its operation on September 1, 2013 (as an EC-supported FP7-REGPOT project; Project number: ), the Crete Center for Quantum Complexity and Nanotechnology (CC) has actively pursued high-caliber theoretical, experimental and computational research in promising areas of Condensed Matter Physics and applications. The CC is located at the premises of the Physics Department of the and its s are professors of the Physics Department of the, pursuing research in areas such as: Josephson junctions (theory) [, Panagopoulos, Flytzanis, Lazarides, Kiritsis] Ultrafast phenomena (theory) [Zotos, Perakis] Magnetics (theory) [Zotos, Papanicolaou] Quantum metamaterials(theory) [, Economou] Holographic models for strongly correlated electrons [Kiritsis, Panagopoulos, Petkou, Tomaras] Graphene (experiment) [Iliopoulos, Konstantinidis, Kalosakas, Papagelis] Nanoelectronics, flexible semiconductors (experiment) [Iliopoulos, Kiriakidis] Measurements, atomic physics(experiment) [Panagopoulos, Kominis, Rakitzis] Superconductivity (experiment) [Panagopoulos] Computational condensed matter physics [, Zotos, Papanicolaou, Perakis] CC s and hired senior-experienced researchers (SERs) and experienced researchers (ERs) interact closely with researchers, via twinning links, in 9 leading institutions, namely the: Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Goettingen Institute for Solid State Research (IFW), Dresden Cambridge, incl. Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) Cavendish Laboratory and Center for Advanced Photonics and Electronics including specialized scientists in the focus areas in other UK institutions Leiden Laboratory of Analysis and Architecture of Systems (LAAS-CNRS), Toulouse Institute of Solid State Physics, Technion, Haifa including I-Core collaboration and scientists in Israel Cologne Physics Institute, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Laboratoire de Physique Theorique de l Ecole Normale Superieure (LPT ENS), including scientists of the Paris area. CC follows, as planned in the DoW, the procurement of a state-of-the-art highperformance computational facility (HPC) and experimental equipment (to enhance its low temperature and micro-nanoelectronics facilities), thus enabling its large number of hired young experienced researchers to advance collaborative research work in the focus areas. The interaction (twinning) with the leading European institutions and the strong visitors/workshops/conference-organization program of the Center enables major advancements in research in order to turn CC into a Center of Excellence with long term viability.

6 CC s International Advisory Committee (IAC) CC s International Advisory Committee (IAC) consists of three outstanding outside senior researchers in the field that are world-class scientists and the Coordinator of CC who assists the Committee. The three outside scientists of the IAC, are (in alphabetical order): Johannes Zaanen, Professor at the Instituut Lorentz for Theoretical Physics, and Physics Department, Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands. Bernd Büchner, Professor at the Institute of Solid State Research, Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research, Dresden, Germany. Siddharth S. Saxena, Professor at Cambridge Unviersity s Jesus College and Cavendish Laboratory where he heads the Quantum Matter Group and also Chairman of the Cambridge Central Asia Forum. Prof. Johannes Zaanen is a world leader in condensed matter physics, an expert on high Tc superconductors strongly correlated electronic systems and related materials. Prof. Bernd Büchner is the Director of the Institute for Sold State Research in Dresden (IFW) and a world expert in magnetics and superconductivity, while Prof. S. Saxena is a renowned experimentalist in condensed matter physics with significant work in superconductivity and complex quantum electronic systems.. The scope of the IAC is to monitor the progress of the project, give advice on research directions, SER and ER hiring, management procedures etc. Deliverable 5.2 comprises the First Advisory Report of the IAC taking into account the evolution, achievements, success and/or possible problems of CC as revealed in the first year (first 12-months) of the lifetime of the project. IAC s have visited the CC on September 2013 (Prof. Zaanen and Prof. Saxena, attended the CC Kick-off Meeting), September 2014 (Prof. Zaanen attended the Quantum Field Theory, String Theory, and Condensed Matter Physics Workshop), and October 2014 (Prof. Saxena visited CC). The visits gave the opportunity to the IAC s to be briefed by the Coordinator (Prof. ) and the group s on research and management issues specific to the project. The IAC produces its 1st advisory report (with Prof. Saxena coordinating the preparation of the report, being in contact with the Coordinator and with the other IAC s), in the form of deliverable D5.2, providing advice for the future CC evolution. Based on the documentation provided by the CC s, in-situ visits and personal communication, the IAC has found the evolution, achievements and success of CC utterly satisfactory and following the DoW as planned; these achievements are documented in the following Chapter of this Report.

7 2. DOCUMENTATION OF CC ACTIVITIES (for the time-period September 1, 2013 August 31, 2014) In the first annual (12-month) period of the Center s operation, work has been pursued on all work-packages (WPs), with emphasis on WP1-6 (WP7 focuses on the project evaluation; its tasks will commence at the last year of the lifetime of the project). Activities per WP are presented below. WP1: Strengthening the Research Potential 4 SERs and 13 ERs (comprising 7 long-term contracts and 6 short-term contracts) were hired in the 1 st year via the appropriate EU and Greek State s rules and procedures for employment of researchers. In addition, one (1) more SER and thirteen (13) new ERs have been selected in order to start employment in the beginning of the 2nd year of the project. Contracts are awarded for a one-year period after which they can be extended. A few shortterm ER assignments have also been awarded; their durations span one to two months or have durations with fixed terminations. Shorter ER appointments reflect advancement of researchers careers. For example, Dr. Phoebus [Foivos] Perakis) was hired as ER for a shorter period of time because he got employment at Stanford, USA. A total of six shorter-term ER appointments have been made during the 1 st year of the Center. The openings of the SER and the ER positions have been announced via the proper sources of dissemination of information on research job openings (EURAXESS); the advertisements are presented in Deliverable 1.1 (for SERs) and Deliverable 1.3 (for ERs). The total number of SER+ER positions will be considerably more than the number of positions (15) presented to the DoW original plan (this increase has been achieved due to the current world-wide economic climate which lowers overall salary levels and, thus, offers additional positions). CC RESEARCH PERSONNEL LIST (ALL researchers; SERs, ERs, and short-term contracts), as of August 31, ΝΑΜΕ ΕR/SER/ other Date of Position Announcement Date of Decision (by Committee) Date of beginning of Contract SERs Dr. Nikolaos Lazaridis SER 30/4/ /06/2013 1/9/2013 Dr. Vasilios Niarchos SER 30/4/ /06/2013 1/9/2013 Dr. Neofotistos SER 14/6/ /07/2013 1/9/2013 Dr. Patrick Henri Navez SER 28/11/ /3/2014 1/5/2014 Dr. Oksana Shramkova SER 28/11/ /5/2014 1/10/2014

8 ERs Dr. Zacharias Viskadourakis ER 14/6/ /07/2013 1/9/2013 Dr. Ioannis Margaris ER 14/6/ /07/2013 1/10/2013 Dr. Leonidas Mouchliadis ER 14/6/ /07/2013 1/10/2013 Dr. Vasilios Binas ER 14/6/ /07/2013 1/9/2013 Dr. Dimitra Psiachou ER 30/4/ /08/ /10/2013 Dr. Fraile Alberto ER 30/4/ /08/ /10/2013 Dr. Herbrych Jacek Wojciech ER 28/11/ /12/ /1/2014 Dr. Przemek Witaszczyk (*) ER 17/3/ /05/2014 1/9/2015 Dr. Li Li ER 17/3/ /05/2014 1/9/2015 Dr. Wei-Jia Li ER 17/3/ /05/2014 1/9/2015 Dr. Yoshinori Matsuo ER 14/3/ /05/2014 1/9/2014 Dr. Ayan Mukhopadhyay ER 14/3/ /05/2014 1/10/2014 Dr. Ioanna Hizanides ER 20/6/ /07/ /10/2014 Dr. Thomas Economou ER 20/6/ /07/ /10/2014 Dr. Nick Christakis ER 20/6/ /07/ /10/2014 Dr. Marios Mattheakis ER 20/6/ /07/ /12/2014 Dr. Fabrice Iacovella ER 20/6/ /07/2014 1/12/2014 Dr. Vladimir Prudovskiy ER 20/6/ /09/2014 1/12/2014 Dr. Haisu Zhang ER 04/07/ /09/ /11/2014 Shorter-term appointments Dr. Phoebus Perakis ER 1/11/2013 Dr. Filippos Vallianatos ER 2/1/2014 Dr. Zoran Ivic ER 2/6/2014 Dr. Ioannis Karadamoglou ER 9/6/2014 Dr. Lukovic Mirko ER 2/6/2014 Dr. Veerman Jan Johan Pieter ER 15/8/2014 (*) pending, on researcher s acceptance of the position. The appointments of Dr. D. Psiachou and Dr. I. Margaris will last one-year each. The total p- months effort for the 1 st year adds up to 40 p-months for the SERs (Lazarides, Niarchos, Neofotistos, Navez) and 85 p-months for the ERs (Viskadourakis, Margaris, Binas, Psiachou, Fraile, Mouchliadis, Wojciech, and shorter term appointments). An additional number of 11 ERs and 1 SER will start employment in the 2 nd year, bringing the total CC p-month projected effort to more than 600 p-months (compared to the planned, in the DoW, total p-month effort of 510 months [170 for SERs and 340 for ERs]. WP2: Infrastructure Procurement of the HPC (High Performance Computing) facility is currently in progress. Under Greek law, an international bid process must be followed. The equipment specifications need to be openly announced for 52 days. On April 9, 2014, the bid offers were opened and the evaluation procedure started. The HPC facility is expected to be procured by the end of Official language of the bid process is Greek (a necessary condition under Greek Law). It should be mentioned that the procurement process has three necessary steps: a) the opening of the bid offers and the examination/evaluation of the necessary legal documents for participating in the bid process, b) the opening of the

9 technical offer (compliance with specs), and c) the opening of the economic offer. After each step, the evaluation committee must submit each specific report to the s Research Committee for confirmation; this Committee meets once a month. If vendors have objections to the specific evaluation/compliance reports, they can submit their objections for discussion and deliberation, after each step. The successful completion of these steps, lead to the grading of each technical and economic offer (and their aggregate grade) and subsequent ranking of each offer. Similar procedures are currently followed for the procurement of Part 2-5 equipment (as described in the DoW). Part 4 and Part 5 are in the completion phase and the relevant equipment are expected to be obtained by the end of For the procurement of Part 1 and Part 6 equipment (as described in the DoW), CC asked permission (from the then Project Officer, Mr. Carlos Gomez) to procure a different set of equipment (which will grow the capacity of the Center, improve excellence, and achieve same overall objective) because the experimental work, which was planned to be conducted on the Part 1 and Part 6 equipment can be conducted in another research facility. In June 2014, the new Project Officer (Mr. Olivier Brunet) approved the request (to replace Part 1 and Part 6 of the originally planned equipment); the new research equipment, which will be obtained instead, are the following: a) Ink-jet printing system (for printable nanoparticle inks) & cartridges ( ) b) Ball milling / Colloidal mill, for the preparation of nanoscale powders with extremely fast grinding of laboratory samples down to < 100 nm lossless grinding, even in suspensions ( ) c) Laser particle (Sizer) analyzer, in order to achieve fully reproducible dispersion solutions for the inkjet printed electronics system ( ) d) Robot 3D roll ink coater ( ) e) Zeta potential monitoring system ( ) f) ISO Test for nitrous oxides ( ) g) Portable Helium Liquefier with interface to a MPMS-XL magnetometer ( ) h) Enhancement of HPC GPU (graphics processing unit) computing and storage ( ) i) HPC peripherals, enhancement ( 5.800) j) HPC support equipment, enhancement ( 5.800) k) HPC data visualization nodes, enhancement ( 5.000) l) HPC small items replacements and some consumables ( 5.000) m) HPC space installation modification ( 4.000) The overall sub-total cost is 354,005, exactly the same amount as the original provision. It should be mentioned that the aforementioned items a)-f) will upgrade our Center s research area on nanotechnology, whereas item g) will upgrade the superconducting and quantum metamaterials research activity, and items h)-m) will further upgrade the overall computational performance of the Center s HPC facility. The procurement procedure for the aforementioned equipment will start September 2014.

10 WP3: Personnel exchanges, twinning and international visits During the first 12-months of the lifetime of the Center, a total of 36 outgoing visits to the Center s twinning institutions have taken place by CC researchers, and 23 incoming visits to CC have taken place by researchers coming from the twinning institutions. In addition, at the same time, 20 outgoing visits have taken place to CC s affiliate institutions, and 30 outgoing visits have taken place to major international research groups/institutions and conferences, along with 34 incoming visits of researchers from affiliate institutions and major international research groups/institutions. In summary, a total of 87 outgoing visits and 57 incoming visits have taken place during the first 12 months of the lifetime of the CCC. Of them, a total of 36 outgoing twinning visits and 23 incoming twinning visits have been conducted during the 1st year of the lifetime of CC. Appendix II presents a Table documenting all these visits. CC s affiliate institutions comprise the NCSR Democritus Research Center in Athens, the of Patras, the Center for High Technologies (Tashkent), the Institute for High Technologies (Kazakhstan), the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), the Center for Theoretical Chemistry and Physics at the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study of Massey (New Zealand) and other institutions. It should be mentioned that CC has signed Memoranda of Understanding for strengthening its research links and dissemination activity with the Center for High Technologies in Uzbekistan, with the Institute for High Technologies in Kazakhstan, and with the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST). CC has added as new s Prof. Tzortzakis (FORTH) and Dr. Provata (NCRS Democritus). CC s new researchers have presented their work to the research and academic communities (Post-doc Day) on February 11, The next Post-doc Day will take place on October 14, The overall collaborative activity (research production) of the Center has resulted in 37 preprints and journal papers (that is, submitted to refereed journals). A complete list is presented in Appendix I. WP4: Workshop organization, outreach and dissemination The kick-off Meeting of the CC took place on September 5-7, 2013, at the premises of the Department of Physics. The meeting fulfilled a threefold objective, namely:

11 a) The announcement (and dissemination), in a formal manner, of the formation (and the launch) of the Center for Quantum Complexity and Nanotechnology in the research and academic communities and in the regional authorities and actors. b) The provision of an important scientific exchange in the Center s research areas, with the gathering of high-caliber researchers from the CC Center s twinning organizations, who presented their research work and interacted with the Center s scientists and researchers, the academic and research community of the region (U. Crete, FORTH) and the regional actors at large (Region, Regional Innovation Council ). c) The provision of an important administrative exchange between the REGPOT Programme Coordinator official and the management committee of the CC Center, elucidating significant issues and clarifying administrative items (which is of particular importance in setting-up the managerial structures in a proper and efficient way, at the very beginning of the project), and also presenting the coming European Initiatives in the European Research Area. CC has organized its first year s workshops/conferences and currently organizes its second and third year s workshops, namely. (i) Quantum Field Theory, String Theory, and Condensed Matter Physics [Holographic applications] (Responsible: Prof. Kiritsis), which will take place September 1-7, 2014, at Kolymbari, Crete, Greece. (ii) Quantum metamaterials (Responsible: Prof. ), which is planned to take place June 1-6, 2015, in the island of Spetses, Greece. (iii) Spin-Orbit Coupling in Surface or Interface States (Correlated electronic materials; Responsible: Prof. Panagopoulos), which is planned to take place June 8-12, 2015, in the island of Spetses, Greece. (iv) Μagnetics 2015: Dynamics and Transport (Magnetics workshop; Responsible: Prof. Zotos), which is planned to take place September 13-19, 2015, at Kolymbari, Crete, Greece. (v) Graphene/nano applications (Responsible: Prof. Iliopoulos), which is planned to take place in Fall The Final Conference will take place in summer 2016 and is planned to be a weeklong conference covering all research areas of the Center. Numerous scientists form the twinning institutions and other prime research institutions around the world are expected to participate. Additional 1 st Year s Workshops/Conferences: As described in the DoW (WP4), the Center organized the Fourth International Workshop on Statistical Mechanics and Dynamical Systems (focusing on complexity and dynamical systems), which took place in Athens, July CC organized and partially supported this workshop because it focused on issues related to the research activities of the Center and its s. Information about the workshop can be found at:

12 As is also described n the DoW (WP4), CC can organize possible additional workshop organization (if the funds permit it) in research areas related to the research activities of the Center and its s. CC co-organized the 4 th PhD Summer School Conference on Mathematical Modeling of Complex Systems, which took place in Athens on July 14-25, and which was announced and presented at:

13 Within this framework, CC also sponsored a session at the ICCMSE 2014 Conference (the 10th International Conference of Computational Methods in Sciences and Engineering), 4-7 April 2014, Athens; announced and presented at: It should be mentioned that, as sponsor in this Conference, CC achieved a high level of visibility and dissemination as can be seen in the following screenshot: Announcements of 2 nd Year s Workshops: a) The Quantum Field Theory, String Theory, and Condensed Matter Physics Workshop, took place in September 1-7, 2014, at Kolymbari, Crete, Greece. It had been announced via the CC s website and via the Conference s website ( as well as the mailing and e-

14 communication of its poster to all s of the global research community in the field b) The Quantum Metamaterials workshop (Responsible: Prof. ), which is planned to take place June 1-6, 2015, in the island of Spetses, Greece, has been announced via CC s website and the workshop s website c) The Spin-Orbit Coupling in Surface or Interface States (Correlated electronic materials; Responsible: Prof. Panagopoulos), which is planned to take place June 8-12, 2015, in the island of Spetses, Greece, has been announced via CC s website and the workshop s website

15 Outreach: A strong outreach and dissemination activity comprised two presentations of the Center to the academic and research communities of Heraklion, as well as the presentation of the Center s activities on February 4, 2014, in the Hi-Tech Conference at the Brussels Enterprises Commerce and Industry (BECI), a business-to-business event organized by BECI and the Greek Embassy in Brussels. CC website: The website of the Center ( has been operational from the very first day, facilitating both the informational needs of the Center s s as well as the outreach and dissemination effort.

16 WP5: Management and International Advisory Committee Day-to-day operations are overseen by the CC Coordinator and the Management Committee, supported by 2 administrative assistants (who also support the twinning visits, the newly hired ERs and SERs regarding administrative issues, as well as the administrative and financial aspects of the operation of the Center) and a computer specialist (supporting the digital infrastructure). Activities include contacts with the International Advisory Committee (IAC) s (as planned and presented in the DoW) and regional contacts (Crete Region). WP6: Organization and management of intellectual property and innovation capability The Center s Exploitation of Innovation Committee will commence activity in October Regional authorities and regional companies and high-tech start-ups will participate in a dissemination event. The Center has also finalized, as described in DoW, the administrative aspects related to the procurement of the services supplied by the Science and Technology Park (STEP-C), an expert in technology transfer and IPR, and IP Strategy, which will provide: Training and IP skills development for all researchers and personnel involved in research and management of technology Enhancement of an innovation and innovation exploitation culture Identifying, securing, maintaining, and utilizing all IPR (patents, copyrights, trademarks etc) Development and management of IP portfolio and technology portfolio Ensuring respect for rights Development of incentives' policy for investors. Setting-up rules on IPR management Setting up a structure to provide continuous support on IPR/Technology Transfer issues (IPR/TT helpdesk) Identification of protectable project research outcomes Evaluation of potential commercial uses of inventions Identification of appropriate methods of protection considering costs, length and market particularities Planning of an IP commercialization route and suggestions on the tasks to be taken by the project partners Preparation of time schedules and financial projections. The contract to STEP-C will be signed in October 2014 and training seminars will begin in November WP7: Project Evaluation Activity on this work-package will commence at the last year of the project. Deliverables: All the project s deliverables for the period spanning Sept 1, 2013 August 31, 2014 have been prepared and uploaded to the Participants Portal. Aggregate statistics: The aggregate CC statistics are presented in the following page.

17 CC at a Glance (as of August 31, 2014) Research Production: 37 papers (working papers, papers submitted to refereed journals, published papers) TWINNING VISITS - Outgoing: 36 TWINNING VISITS - Incoming: 23 Visits to Affiliate Institutions Outgoing: 20 Visits from Affiliate Institutions Incoming: 4 Visits to major international research groups and conferences/workshops Outgoing: 31 Visits from major international research groups Incoming: 30 Number of ER hired in 1 st year: 13 (comprising 7 long-term contracts and 6 short-term contracts) Number of SER hired in 1 st year: 4 Number of additional ER/SER selected to be hired (starting in the 2 nd year): 13 ERs / 1 SER Number of administrative assistants hired: 2 Number of technicians (computer specialists) hired: 1 Additional CC s: 3 (Prof. Tzortzakis, Dr. Provata, Dr. Aubry) AFFILIATE INSTITUTIONS: NCSR Democritus, Center for High Technologies (Tashkent), Institute for High Technologies (Kazakhstan), of Patras, CNRS Strasburg, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), Center for Theoretical Chemistry and Physics at the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study of Massey (New Zealand), ITAP and Istanbul Tech. Equipment procurement: in progress Workshops held: Kick-off Meeting (as planned in DoW) and co-organization of additional workshops Website: fully operational ( Outreach Events: 3 Post-doc Day: 1

18 3. CONCLUSION The First Advisory Report of the IAC takes into account the evolution, achievements, success and/or possible problems of CC as revealed in the first year (first 12-months) of the lifetime of the project. IAC s have visited the CC on September 2013 (Prof. Zaanen and Prof. Saxena, attended the CC Kick-off Meeting), September 2014 (Prof. Zaanen attended the Quantum Field Theory, String Theory, and Condensed Matter Physics Workshop), and October 2014 (Prof. Saxena visited CC). The visits gave the opportunity to the IAC s to be briefed by the Coordinator (Prof. ) and the group s on research and management issues specific to the project. The IAC produces its 1st advisory report (with Prof. Saxena coordinating the preparation of the report, being in contact with the Coordinator and with the other IAC s), in the form of deliverable D5.2, providing advice for the future CC evolution. Based on the documentation provided by the CC s, in-situ visits and personal communication, the IAC has found the evolution, achievements and success of CC utterly satisfactory and following the DoW as planned. Research is rigorously conducted in all main research directions, namely: Research Direction 1: Magnetics and Magnetic Nanodevices Research Direction 2: Strongly Correlated Condensed Matter Systems Research Direction 3: Complex Materials and Metamaterials. One of CC s, Prof. Kyriakidis, became Vice president of the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS), and one of CC-produced papers, entitled Small-world networks of optical fiber lattices", by F. Perakis, M. Mattheakis & G., had been chosen as Journal of Optics Paper of the Week. Regarding the hired research personnel, 13 ERs and 4 SERs were hired in 1 st year); additionally (starting in the 2 nd year) 13 ERs and 1 SER will be hired. Affiliate institutions and additional s have been added. Workshops are held as planned, the website is in operation ( outreach events and post-doc days take place. The equipment procurement is in progress. However, there is one (funding) issue, which must be taken into account by the funding agency: CC has already received 60% of the EC funding contribution, with the rest (40%) planned to be deposited after the end of the lifetime of the project, following the proper rules. Given the bad economic situation of Greece, with worsening state funding of the universities, the 40% later installment (which is well over 1 million Euros) is almost impossible to be covered by the financial means. This financially stressful situation may jeopardize the so far success of CC. The aforementioned liquidity gap will occur in the third year of the lifetime of the project. IAC would like to reveal this potential problem to the European authorities in order to investigate possible modes of dealing successfully with the problem (for example, pay equipment purchases in a pay-asyou-go scheme, in excess of the 60% initial financial installment).

19 APPENDIX I TABLE: CC s Research Production - Working Papers; Papers submitted to refereed journals; published Papers. CC Code Date Authors Title of research paper CC /10/2013 Amalia Hadjitheodorou, George Kalosakas Analytical and numerical study of diffusion-controlled drug release from composite spherical matrices Transforming graphene nanoribbons to nanotubes by use of point CC /10/2013 A. Sgouros, M. M. Sigalas, Κ. Papagelis and G. Kalosakas defects CC /10/2013 N. Lazarides and G. P. Nonlinear Localization in Metamaterials CC /10/2013 G.P. N. Lazarides PT -symmetric nonlinear metamaterials and zero-dimensional systems CC /10/2013 I. Margaris, V. Paltoglou and N. Flytzanis T-matrix formalism for one space dimension systems with different spatial asymptotics and symmetry relations for ferromagnetic Josephson junctions A model for holographic QCD in the Veneziano limit at finite T. Alho M.Jarvinen K. Kajantie E. Kiritsis K. Tuominen CC /10/2013 temperature and density CC /11/2013 Elias Kiritsis, Liuba Mazzanti and Francesco Nitti The confining trailing string Elias Kiritsis, Matthew Lippert, Rene Meyer, Anastasios CC /11/2013 Taliotis A holographic model for the fractional quantum Hall effect CC /12/2013 G. P., N. Lazarides, A Maluckov and Lj. Hadzievski Extreme Events in Nonlinear Lattices Enhanced surface plasmon polariton propagation induced by active CC /1/2014 C. Athanasopoulos, M. Mattheakis and G.P. dielectrics CC /12/2013 Jun Bourdier and Elias Kiritsis Holographic RG Flows and Nearly-Marginal Operators CC /12/2013 Karl Landsteiner, Eugenio Megias and Francisco Pena-Benitez Is the Chiral Vortical Effect Vanishing in Heavy Ion Collisions? CC /1/2014 Elias Kiritsis, Wenliang Li, Francesco Nitti Holographic RG flow and the Quantum Effective Action CC /1/2014 Z. Viskadourakis, S. Mukherjee, S. S. Sonku, B. M. Andersen, T. Ito, T. Sasagawa and C. Panagopoulos Generic ferroelectric ground state and magnetoelectric coupling in underdoped 214 cuprates

20 CC /12/2013 Oliver DeWolfe, Steven S. Gubser and Christopher Rosen Minding the gap in N= 4 Super-Yang-Mills CC /1/2014 F. Perakis, M. Mattheakis and G. P. Small-world networks of optical fiber lattices CC /1/2014 Takaaki Ishii, Shunichiro Kinoshita, Keiju Murata and Norihiro Tanahashi Dynamical Meson Melting in Holography CC /10/2013 G. Baris Bagci, Thomas Oikonomou Tsallis power laws and finite baths with negative heat capacity CC /1/2014 I. K. Kominis, G. Kolliopoulos, D. Charalambidis and P. Tzallas Towards Quantum Information Processing at the Attosecond Timescale CC /12/2013 K. M. Vitalis and I. K. Kominis Lamb Shift in Radical-Ion Pairs is Physically Equivalent to a Spin- Exchange Interaction CC /2/2014 A. T. Dellis, M. Loulakis and I. K. Kominis Spin-Noise Exchange CC /2/2014 Thomas Oikonomou Clausius vs. Boltzmann-Gibbs entropies CC /2/2014 Vasilis Niarchos Supersymmetric Perturbations of the M5 brane CC /2/2014 N. Brambilla, S. Eidelman, P. Foka, S. Gardner, A.S. Kronfeld QCD and strongly-coupled gauge theories: challenges and perspectives CC /2/2014 D. Psiachos Coherent Electron Transfer in Polyacetylene CC /3/2014 Aristomenis Donos, Blaise Gouteraux, Elias Kiritsis Holographic Insulators and Incoherent Metals with helical symmetry CC /4/2014 G. P., N. Lazarides, I. Margaris Wide-Band Tuneability, Nonlinear Transmission, and Dynamic Multistability in SQUID Metamaterials CC /6/2014 Demetra Psiachos, Nikos Lazarides, G.P. PT -Symmetric Dimers with Time-Periodic Gain/Loss Function CC /6/2014 P. Binetruy E. Kiritsis, J. Mabillard, M. Pieroni, C. Rosset Universality classes for models of inflation CC /6/2014 Francesco Aprile, Takaaki Ishii A Simple Holographic Model of a Charged Lattice CC /6/2014 A. P. Sgouros, G. Kalosakas, M. M. Sigalas and Κ. Papagelis Exotic carbon nanostructures obtained through controllable defect engineering CC /7/2014 Daniel Fernandez Towards Collisions of Inhomogeneous Shockwaves in AdS CC /7/2014 D. Psiachos Superexchange in Mott-Hubbard Insulators CC /7/2014 M. Porer, U. Leierseder, J.-M. Menard, H. Dachraoui, L. Non-thermal separation of electronic and structural orders in a

21 Mouchliadis, I. E. Perakis, U. Heinzmann, J. Demsar, K. persisting charge density wave Rossnagel & R. Huber CC /8/2014 Elias Kiritsis Gravity and axions from a random UV QFT CC /8/2014 N. Lazarides, G. Neofotistos, G. P. Chimeras in SQUID Metamaterials CC /8/2014 Th. Oikonomou, A. Nergis, N. Lazarides, G. P. Stochastic metastability by spontaneous localization

22 APPENDIX II: CC Outgoing and Incoming Visits OUTGOING VISITS (from CC to abroad) NAME Home Institution Destination Nikolaos Lazaridis Elias Kiritsis Ilias Perakis Christopher Rosen Daniel Fernandez /Physics department /Physics department The National Center for Scientific Research Democritos", Greece Newton Institute of Mathemnatical Sciences, Cambridge, UK Institute de Physique et Chimie des Materiaux de Strasbourg (CNRS), France. The National Center for Scientific Research "Democritos", Greece Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge, UK Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge, UK Duration of Title of Lecture/description Visit of collaboration 22-25/9/2013 "Breathers Driven by Gain in PT-Symmetric Metamaterials" 15-21/9/2013 and 30/9 4/10/ /9/ /9/2013 Gave a talk on his recent work in the workshop Mathematics and Physics of the Holographic Principle, Coordinated with D. Tong (Cambridge) and S. Saxena (Cambridge) on the exchange between Crete and Cambridge as well as Crete and Leiden. Collaboration with the team of Professor Jean- Yves Bigot on the project Ultrafast dynamics of the magnetization in ferromagnetic materials Talk with title "Quantum tricks in the shadows of strong correlations: teaching magnetic devices how to think ultra-fast 15-21/9/2013 Participation in the 2013 Isaac Newton Institute program entitled Holography: from gravity to quantum matter 15-21/9/2013 Participation in the 2013 Isaac Newton Institute program entitled Holography: from gravity to quantum matter The CC Project is funded in the framework of the EC's SEVENTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME (FP7-REGPOT ) under Grant Agreement n

23 Theodore Tomaras Alberto Fraile Kusadasi, Turkey Athens, Greece Altea, Alicante, La Linea, Spain Ecole Normale Superieure, France The National Center for Scientific Research Democritos", Greece 9-12/9/ /9/2013 Research collaboration with Prof. Ugur Tirnakli. They also worked on the organization of the 4th Greek Turkish Conference on Statistical Mechanics & Dynamical Systems Collaboration with Prof. Astero Provata on the organization of the 4th Greek Turkish Conference 18-29/9/2013 Talk at the conference Quodons in Mica: Nonlinear Localized Traveling Excitations in Crystals (Quodons 2013) with title Gain- Driven Breathers in PT- Symmetric Metamaterials. Research collaboration with Prof. Ustinov (KIT) & Prof. Flach (Massey 16/9 30/10/ /10 2/11/2013 ) Scientific collaboration with Professor C. Bachas (ENS) and other s of Laboratoire de Physique Theorique on the computation of «entropy» in various systems Talk with title Where the World stands still: The turnaround radius as a robust test of ΛCDM. Talk with title Ab initio simulations of shock waves in biological media Participation in a meeting on nonlinear excitations (breathers) in two dimensional systems like graphene or boron nitride.

24 Kalosakas Elias Perakis Kostantinos Papagelis Marios Matthaiakis Xenophon Zotos Elias Perakis of Patra / of Patra / The National Center for Scientific Research Democritos", Greece Goettingen, Germany Tashkent, Uzbekistan Instabul, Turkey The National Center for Scientific Research Democritos", Greece Institute de Physique et Chimie des Materiaux de Strasbourg (CNRS), France. The National Center for Scientific Research Democritos", Greece The National Center for Scientific Research Democritos", Greece Wilhelm Und Else Heraeus Stiftung at Rhondorf in Germany Institute J. Stefan and the Physics Department of the of Ljubljana 31/10 2/11/13 Participation in a working meeting on graphene 3-5/10/13 Talk at the 2nd Symposium on 5-11/10/13 Nonlinear Dynamics & its Applications in 11-13/10/13 Science Talk at the Conference for Complex Nonlinear Systems Research collaboration with Prof Tugral Hakiogla on Complex Systems 1-2/11/2013 Participation in a working meeting on graphene 24/10-6/11/2013 Collaboration with the team of professor Jean- Yves Bigot on the project Ultrafast dynamics of the magnetization in ferromagnetic materials Participation in the Ultrafast Magnetism Conference 1-2/11/2013 Participation in a working meeting on graphene 14-17/11/2013 Research collaboration in Democritos 1-5/12/2013 Participating the WE- Heraeus seminar on Light in disordered Photonic Media 27/11-1/12/2013 Research collaboration on the thermodynamics, thermal conductivity and ESR of spin-1 easy axis compounds. San Fransisco 2-7/2/2014 Participation in Conference Photonics West organized by SPIE

25 Neofotistos Neofotistos The National Center for Scientific Research Democritos", Greece The National Center for Scientific Research Democritos", Greece Brussels Cambridge 17-24/12/2013 Research collaboration in Democritos 17-23/12/2013 Research collaboration in Democritos 3-5/2/14 5-9/2/14 Presenting CC in Belgian Chamber of Commerce Research collaboration with S. Saxena s group in Cambridge Nikolaos Lazaridis Elias Kiritsis Neofotistos Karlsruhe's Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany Univ. of Paris 16/12/13 19/1/14 The National Center for Scientific Research Democritos", Greece 3-15/2/14 Research collaboration on superconducting and quantum metamaterials Research collaboration on open Wilson loops in presence of quark degrees of freedom and on holographic effective action /1/2014 Research collaboration on the subject of computational nanotechnology, with emphasis on modeling and simulation of timedependent behavior and temporal characteristics of nanostructure networks (electron transport in coupled quantum devices). Alberto Fraile FORTH-ICE HT (at Patra) and Universty of Patra Boston and Center for Nonlinear Studies of Los Alamos 28-31/1/2014 Research collaboration on Raman shift techniques 7-18/1/14 Research collaboration on grapheme and talk Technion, Israel 24-31/1/2014 Research collaboration

26 Mattheakis Marios Demokritos, Athens 31/1 2/2/14 in the area of modern optics, plasmonics Pesearch collaboration and organization of the 4 th Summer School/ Conference on Complex Systems Technion, Israel 5-14/3/14 Research collaboration on the subject Surface Plasmon Polariton propagation through hyperbolic materials Serge Aubry Athens 3-7/4/14 Participation in 10th International Conference of Computational Methods in Sciences and Engineering (ICCMSE 2014) Mattheakis Marios Mandarfen, Austria 17-24/3/14 Participation in the Dynamics Symposium Shena Joniald Demokritos, Athens Mandarfen, Austria NCSR Demokritos, Athens 12-14/2/ /2/14 Research collaboration and talk 6-10/3/14 Attended scientific workshop and talk Xenophon Zotos Elias Kiritsis Cologne, Germany Cambridge Loughborough 26-30/3/14 Research collaboration 27-28/3/14 Research collaboration Athens 3-7/4/14 Participation in 10th International Conference of Computational Methods in Sciences and Engineering (ICCMSE 2014) Leiden, 31/3 4/4/14 Research collaboration at Lorentz Institute of

27 Netherlands Utrecht, Netherlands 13-16/4/14 the of Leiden Visit to Spinoza Institute at Utrecht Ishii Takaaki Leiden and Amsterdam, Netherlands 31/3 10/4/14 Research collaboration and talk; attended workshop at the of Amsterdam Daniel Fernandez Vasilios Niarchos Jie Ren Cambridge, UK 14-28/3/14 Research collaboration and talk. Attended workshop Cambridge, UK 22/4 2/5/14 Research collaboration Leiden Amsterdam, Netherlands 31/3 4/4/14 7-9/4/14 Research collaboration at Lorentz institute at Leiden Attended workshop Albrecht Dylan Cambridge, UK Leiden, Netherlands 25/4 2/5/ /5/14 Research collaboration Jacek Herbrych Jie Ren Benitez Francisco Ljubljana, Slovenia 22/4 4/5/14 Visit to the Jozef Stefan Institute, talk and research collaboration Cambridge, UK 4-11/5/14 Research collaboration Cambridge, UK 21-25/4/14 Research collaboration Rosen Christopher Leiden, Netherlands 8-15/5/14 Research collaboration and talk Zacharias Viskadourakis Ioannis Kominis Erice-Sicily 25-31/7/2014 Paris, France 24/4-9/5/2014 Participation in the International Conference Superstripes 2014 ; contributed with a poster presentation titled Ferroelectricity in La-214 cuplates. Research collaboration in ENS (Paris) with the group of Prof. Fabre.; presentation of his

28 Fraile Alberto Nikolaos Lazaridis Zacharias Viskadourakis Daniel Fernandez Marios Mattheakis Xenophon Zotos Daniel Fernandez Ishii Takaaki Psiachou Demetra Vasilios Binas Lille, France 25-30/5/2014 Singapore 20-25/5/2014 Nanyang Technologial (NTU), Singapore École Normale Supérieure (ENS) Paris, France 10-24/5/ /6/14 Rodos island, Greece 6-11/7/14 Rodos island, Greece 6-11/7/14 Rodos island, Greece 10-11/7/14 The Technion - Haifa, Israel of Cambridge, UK 17-25/5/14 24/5-1/6/14 Lille, France 25-28/5/14 Lille, France 24-31/5/14 research; work Attending the E-MRS 2014 SPRING MEETING, poster presentation Attending the 5th International Conference on Metamaterials, Photonic crystals and Plasmonics and talk research on ferroelectricity and magnetoelectricity in correlated electron systems with the Physics of Novel Electronics group, in Singapore. Research collaboration at ENS and seminar talk participate in the International Conference on Statistical Physics and poster presentation Participate in the international Statistical Physics conference SigmaPhi He also presented a talk with title "Finite temperature and magnetic field transport in 1D quantum magnets". Participate in the international Statistical Physics conference SigmaPhi He also presented a talk with title "Nonlinear lattices embedded in non zero heat baths". Research collaboration at Technion and seminar talk Research collaboration at Cambridge participate in the E-MRS 2014, an international materials-science conference. Poster presentation participated in the Spring Meeting of European Materials Research Society.

29 Fransisco Benitez Patrick Navez Nikolaos Lazaridis Fransisco Benitez Zacharias Viskadourakis U Crete / U Crete / The Technion - Haifa, Israel Nanyang Technological (NTU), Singapore Demokritos research center, Athens 10-18/5/ /5/14 3-5/5/14 & 7-9/5/14 Technion, Israel 6/5/2014 Anargirios School in Spetses island 9/5/2014 KIT, Karlsruhe 17-18/6/14 Athens 16-20/7/14 Ecole Polytechnique, Paris 26-30/5/14 Thessaloniki, Greece 7-9/7/14 presentation of two posters. Research collaboration and seminar talk with title "Time dependence of the chiral vortical effect" Participated in the META 14th, 5th International Conference on Metamaterials, Photonic Crystals and Plasmonics and gave an invited talk titled Quantum & Superconducting Metamaterials. Research collaboration and organization of the 4 th Summer School/Conference on Complex Systems that will take place in Athens during July 2014 under the auspices of CC Collaborative research work on topological photonics Organization of the Quantum Metamaterials CC Conference scheduled for June 2015 Research collaboration at KIT and seminar presentation Participated in the "Fourth International Workshop on Statistical Mechanics and Dynamical Systems" in Athens and gave an invited talk Research collaboration and seminar talk with title AdS/CFT and anomaly induced transport. Participated in the 11 th International Conference on Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies NN14 and gave a talk with title Current transport and thermoelectric properties

30 Christopher Rosen Patrick Navez Kyriakidis Alberto Fraile Eleftherios Economou Marios Mattheakis Ecole Normale Superieur (ENS), Paris 8-15/6/14 Athens 17-19/7/14 Almaty, Kazakhstan 21-23/6/14 Astana, Kazahstan 23-30/6/14 Univ. of Cambridge, UK 16-19/7/14 Athens 17-18/7/14 Athens 16-20/7/14 Athens 12-21/7/14 of very high thermoelectric power factor Fe3O4/SiO2/p-type Si(100) devices" Research collaboration and seminar talk Participated in the "Fourth International Workshop on Statistical Mechanics and Dynamical Systems" in Athens and gave an invited talk Scientific, organizational and policy discussions with Prof. S. S. Saxena Participation in the International Workshop on HIF/HEDP NDCX-NU Accelerator Facility and gave an invited talk entitled Nonlinear dynamics in High energy accelerators. Participated in a bilateral meeting following an invitation by the Twinning partner (UNICAM / Prof. Arokia Nathan) Participated in the "Fourth International Workshop on Statistical Mechanics and Dynamical Systems" in Athens Participated in the "Fourth International Workshop on Statistical Mechanics and Dynamical Systems" in Athens and gave an invited talk Participated in the "Fourth International Workshop on Statistical Mechanics and Dynamical Systems" in Athens and poster presentation