Grants for eastern european scientists
Place and Date
The XVth Rencontres de Blois, entitled «PHYSICAL COSMOLOGY» will be held in the Château Royal de Blois, France, from Sunday, June 15th, to Friday, June 20th, 2003.
The picturesque old French town of Blois, famous for its XIV-XVIIth century château, is about 170 km (100 miles) from Paris in the beautiful region of the «Châteaux de la Loire».
The Rencontres de Blois are international conferences, whose spirit is explicitly multidisciplinary. They have now been organized for a number of years in the city of Blois, in France, and have covered topics ranging from particle physics to chaos theory, life and planetary science. They are a mix of invited and contributed papers; posters are also very welcome. Young researchers are particularly encouraged to attend and for this purpose we have set aside funds to partially cover their participation.
PHYSICAL COSMOLOGY is the fifteenth of a series of Rencontres, the most recent ones have been Frontiers of Matter, held in the summer of 1999, Frontiers of Life, held in the summer of 2000, Frontiers of the Universe, held in the summer of 2001 and Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry, held in the summer of 2002.
The conference will take place in the Château de Blois itself, an ancient Royal residence situated in one of the most charming regions of France; lunch and dinner are served in the castle to all participants; the conference format is designed to encourage discussion and cross-fertilization of ideas. Participants are expected to stay for the whole week.
Conference secretary
The address of the conference secretary is:
| Rencontres de Blois, Blois2003 B.P. 33, F-91192 Gif sur Yvette, France tel 33 (0)1 69 29 05 50; fax 33 (0)1 69 28 86 59 email Laurence.Moutie@th.u-psud.fr |
When in session, the postal address of the conference is:
| Rencontres de Blois Château de Blois 41000 Blois, France |
Welcome and Registration
Participants are expected to arrive on Sunday afternoon, June 15th. Registration at the conference office in the Château de Blois will start at 15:00 on Sunday, June 15th. A welcome cocktail will be offered to the participants and their families at 19:00. It will be followed by a dinner.
Conference Schedule
The conference will start on Monday, June 16th, at 9:00 and will end on Friday, June 20th, at 17:00. The conference room will be located at the Château Royal de Blois.
Conference Facilities
The following equipment will be available: a slide projector for 5 cm x 5 cm slides, an overhead-projector for transparencies and a beamer for video-presentations (but participants are expected to use their own laptops).
Transparencies
In order to make transparencies of the conference available on the web, speakers who have their talks in file format (Powerpoint, PDF, Postscript, HTML,...) are invited to send them by email to Jacques Dumarchez at jacques.dumarchez@cern.ch
Abstract submission form
Participants wishing to present their work orally in a parallel session or wishing to make a poster contribution should refer to the conference abstract submission form. For more information please have a look on the "program" pages.
Proceedings
The proceedings will be edited and published. Participants will receive a copy of the proceedings at no extra charge. The deadline for submitting the manuscript is October 1st, 2003. Instructions for submitting the manuscripts will be distributed at the conference and will be also available in the WEB pages from June 2003 on.
Registration Fee
The registration form is available on the registration page. The registration fee will amount to 315 Euros.
Accompanying members will be charged 150 euros to cover the conference
"banquet", the visits of the Châteaux and the excursions.
Payment of the registration fee can be made:
- by personal check in euros to the order of Rencontres de Blois, sent to the conference secretariat or on arrival at the conference;
- by traveller's checks in euros or US dollars on arrival at the conference;
- by prepayment by bank transfer (remember to add 25 euros or 25 US$ for bank fees) to the following account:
Rencontres de Blois - Banque Regionale de l'Ouest - Blois, France
Bank code 10528, Branch 00001, Account 01 002 57834G, Key 38
Swift code: CMCI FR22
IBAN : FR07 1052 8000 0101 0025 7834 / (key) G 38.
It will take one month for our account to be credited, so please have the bank transfer made before May 15th. In any case, bring proof of the transfer and give it to the conference secretariat during registration in Blois. Please, note that we are unable to accept credit card for registration payment.
Accommodation
Information is available on the Lodging paragraph.
Meals
In order to enhance the interactions and exchanges between participants, all participants are requested to have lunch and dinner together. The conference has asked a caterer to serve lunch and dinner in the Château de Blois. The package cost for 5 days is 200 euros and will be paid to the caterer on the conference site by cash or check. Please, note that this package cannot be reduced for partial attendance. The conference banquet will take place on Thursday, June 19th.
Social program
Several social activities are planned during the conference for participants, their families and guests:
- visits of the Châteaux de Blois et de Chenonceau;
- a "son et lumière" show at the Château de Blois;
- visit of the "Clos Lucé" museum;
- an additional program for the accompanying persons (cost not included in the above) will be organized in collaboration with the tourist office of Blois.
Travel
Information is available on the Travel paragraph.
Deadline for Registration: May 15th, 2003.
If you are unable to access or use our web based forms, or if you urgently need information which is not in the information bulletin, please inform the conference secretary by email at Laurence.Moutie@th.u-psud.fr.
one star (*), two stars (**) and three stars (***), all rooms having either a shower or a bath.
Please fill in the electronic hotel reservation form (on this web site together with the registration form) and send it by email to Laurence.Moutie@th.u-psud.fr or fax it to 33 (0)1 69 28 86 59.
Room reservations can only be guaranteed if your registration form has reached the conference secretariat by May 15th, 2003. We apologize in advance if it is not possible to reserve the hotel category corresponding to your request. We will acknowledge receipt of your reservation and the hotel category obtained for you.
Please note that hotel reservations at this reduced cost are made for the whole conference: i.e. from Sunday afternoon, June 15th, till the morning of the Friday, June 20th (lunch included). The total cost cannot be reduced in case of partial attendance.
In order to simplify matters and to save you the bother of sending the 100 euros deposit normally required to guarantee hotel reservation, the conference will do this for you. However, in exchange, we ask you to agree to reimburse the conference for the deposit we will have paid, should you cancel your reservation after May 15, since after this date the hotel will keep the deposit.
Cancellations of hotel reservations can be made freely only up May 15th, 2003. After this date, the hotel will require full payment.
| * * * | * * | * |
|---|---|---|
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Hotel Mercure |
Le Savoie |
A la Ville de Tours |
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Relais de l'Octroi |
Etap Hotel |
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Eurotel |
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La Renaissance |
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Hôtel Anne De Bretagne |
More informations about Blois : Tourism Office www.loiredeschateaux.com
Laurence.Moutie@th.u-psud.fr
The most convenient way to reach Blois is to arrive in Paris and take a train (SNCF) from the Austerlitz railway station to Blois. The following train schedule is still preliminary. Please, check with your travel agency or by consulting www.voyages-sncf.com.
A bus shuttle will be organized at the arrival of some trains to Blois.
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Sunday, June 15, 2003 |
Friday, June 20, 2003 |
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Departure from |
Arrival in |
Return |
Arrival in |
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10 h 47 |
12 h 45 |
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|
|
13 h 41 |
15 h 39 |
17 h 29 |
18 h 59 |
|
17 h 00 |
19 h 04 |
19 h 16 |
20 h 58 |
Blois can easily be reached by car. Take the exit "Blois" on the Motorway ("autoroute'') A10 connecting Paris to the Châteaux de la Loire area (about 2 hours drive). Once in Blois, follow the signs "Centre Ville".
Grants for eastern european scientists