International Association of Physics Students


The International Association of Physics Students is a non-profit umbrella organization for physics students associations. Its official seat is in Mulhouse, France in the headquarters of the European Physical Society. It was founded in 1987 in Debrecen, Hungary.

Introduction

IAPS is an association of physics students and student societies from around the globe, working to promote peaceful collaboration amongst its members. These are represented by national and local committees, who meet regularly to ensure the relevance of activities.
Since 1987, IAPS has worked continuously to support friendly relations and collaboration between physics students. The group supports its members in their academic and professional work by discussing and acting on scientific, social and cultural issues. IAPS is a recognised non-governmental organisation run entirely by students from around the world.
IAPS runs an annual International Conference of Physics Students, one of the biggest student organized conferences in the world. IAPS also organizes visits to global research institutions such as CERN or Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, international physics competitions, summer schools, exchange programmes and multinational meetings.
On a daily basis, IAPS is run by an Executive Committee, which is elected at the Annual General Meeting, held during the ICPS with the participation of all member societies. Most of the activities are run through the help of student volunteers, whose collaboration is necessary to ensure that all activities are offered at prices that allow participation from countries with weaker economies.
Throughout its existence, IAPS has been accumulating a number of partnerships with several international organizations. Between the most long-standing collaborators stand the European Physical Society and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics. IAPS continuously pursues collaborative partnership efforts with other organizations to have a positive impact in the global scientific community.

Structure

IAPS is run by an Executive Committee, which is elected at the Annual General Meeting. IAPS members may be national physics student organisations, called National Committees, physics student association localised at one university or city, called Local Committees and individual members if none of the before are present where one studies. In a broad sense, all the members of NC-s and LC-s, as well as IM-s, are members of IAPS. Membership costs are calculated for each applicant based on the type of committee and the applicant country's GDP.

Executive Committee

The IAPS Executive Committee is currently composed of 9 students, elected between representatives of the different member societies. The 2018/19 EC is composed of:
TitleNameNationalityAffiliation
PresidentJyri GenralFinlandUniversity of Jyväskylä
TreasurerMargaret RosenbergAustriaUniversity of Vienna
SecretaryAugustin OreškovićCroatiaUniversity of Zagreb
Membership and Alumni ManagerAnna VarstedDenmarkUniversity of Copenhagen
Events ManagerOwen HigginsIrelandUniversity of Liège
PR ManagerEetu RimoFinlandUniversity of Helsinki
IT manager & Data Protection OfficerMogens Henrik FromDenmarkUniversity of Southern Denmark
Outreach ManagerLuka Cavaliere LokasCroatiaUniversity of Zagreb
Vice-President / Advocacy and Recruitment ManagerDuarte GraçaPortugalUniversity of Porto

National Committees{{Cite news|url=http://www.iaps.info/members/list-of-iaps-members|title=List of {IAPS} Members|date=2013-11-16|work={iaps}|access-date=2017-09-03|language=en-US}}

Local Committees

Individual Members

Students of physics or related subjects who do not have access to an NC or LC may join as IMs. Only IAPS members may attend IAPS events such as ICPS. Currently IAPS has around 100 Individual Members.

Honorary Members

The following people were elected Honorary Fellows by an IAPS AGM:

International Conference of Physics Students

ICPS International Conference of Physics Students is the International Conference of Physics Students, which is the main event of IAPS, organized yearly by one of its member committees. The purpose of the conference is to create an opportunity for physics students from all around the world to come together, to talk about science and life, to practice presenting their research and, all in all, to have a great time.
The first ICPS was organized by students of the Eötvös Loránd University, in Budapest, Hungary in the year 1986. The event had less than fifty participants, but since then, the conference has grown considerably, nowadays bringing together more than four hundred students.
The one week of the conference has its fair share of scientific, social and touristic programs. One gets a chance to listen to and give lectures on various topics in physics, to check out the laboratories of the host city, to make friends with physics students from all around the world, to get a little glimpse of the foreign cultures that gather here, and to see another part of the world.
The following list contains the venues of the ICPS conferences:
Since its foundation, IAPS has organised several trips to international research facilities, either directly or through its member societies.

iaps2CERN

IAPS yearly organises annual tours to CERN, in Geneva. The highly successful iaps2CERN programme usually has approximately 40 participants, representing up to 20 different nationalities. The tour usually comprises visits of the CERN exhibitions, some of the experiments currently accessible and also a visit of the United Nations offices in Geneva.

International Physics Competitions

PLANCKS is an annual international physics contest for bachelor and master students. It is usually a three day event and can include in addition to the competition itself scientific program like a symposium and excursions, as well as social events and the award ceremony. PLANCKS is arranged by different IAPS member committees.
In May 2014, the A-Eskwadraat student association held the first PLANCKS edition in Utrecht.
Since then, it took place every year at varying places:
YearLocation Winning country
2014Utrecht
2015Leiden
2016Bucharest
2017Graz
2018Zagreb
2019Odense

IAPS also support other physics competitions, such as the Ortvay competition and International Physics Tournament.