LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics: open science education collaborations between Latin America and Europe for advanced physics
Abstract
Communities in astrophysics, astronomy, and high-energy physics have pioneered Virtual Research and Learning Communities (VRLCs) that foster international cooperation, open education, and the development of new generations of scientists through accessible virtual environments. Building on this foundation, the LA-CoNGA Physics network (2020–2024) [1] established an European–Latin American collaboration to modernize advanced physics education and research infrastructure across multiple countries in Latin America and Europe. LA-CoNGA physics united 11 universities and leading scientific institutions—including CERN, CEA, CNRS, DESY, ICTP and RedCLARA—offering a shared postgraduate curriculum in high-energy physics, data science, and instrumentation. It integrated interconnected laboratories and an open e-learning platform, embedding Open Science education and Open Data principles. The network enhanced inclusivity and resilience, notably addressing challenges such as remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, while fostering engagement through seminars, citizen science projects, and open science hackathons [2]. In 2025, the initiative evolved into EL-BONGO Physics [3], expanding the consortium by incorporating a few countries in Central American and broadening its scientific scope to include astroparticles and multi-messenger physics, geophysics, artificial intelligence, and computational physics, alongside high-energy physics. This expanded network deepens the European–Latin American partnership, driving further modernization and internationalization of higher education systems through cooperation, shared infrastructure, and open-access resources. Together, LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO exemplify how transcontinental VRLCs leverage open education, cutting-edge virtual tools, and global collaboration to transform physics education and research, fostering innovation, inclusion, and sustainable capacity-building across diverse scientific fields. [1] http://laconga.redclara.net[2] https://laconga.redclara.net/hackathon/[3] https://elbongo.redclara.net
Full text
LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics: open science education collaborations between Latin America and Europe for advanced physics Reina Camacho Toro, LPNHE/CNRS on behalf of the LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics consortia September 17th, 2025
2 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 ●Open science and the need for training and capacity building ●Context: ○ Particle physics, cosmology and astrophysics (HECAP) ○ Shared infrastructure, international collaboration and open science ● LA-CoNGA physics: ○ Results? Challenges? ○ and the future: EL-BONGO physics Outline LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics
3 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 Open science and the need for capacity building/training ●Ideally, it is a way of doing science in which everyone can access resources, reuse them, reproduce them, create from them, and distribute them freely, without any barriers. ●A community framework for collaboration and sustainability: ○Reliability and effectiveness: reproducibility of research ○Improving quality and impact ○More collaborative research ○Efficient use of public money ○Sustainability/continuity UNESCO LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics
4 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics What is needed to achieve this cultural change? ●Part of the community is moving and/or open to move in this direction (provided there are no legal, patent or ethical reasons preventing or delaying the dissemination of scientific information)... In particular in the context of open education ●However, cultural change takes time and requires resources Organisations Universities Institutions Research staff Libraries Industry Collaborations Groups Infrastructure Resources Guidelines Skill development (data and software) Time Policies Agreements Best practices Make it possible/easy Make it understandable Make it rewarding Make it ‘default’
5 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics ●Open science means many things in different contexts. Therefore, best practices may differ in different contexts ●There are many obstacles... among the most frequently cited are: (Kirstie Whitaker’ at csv,conf,v4 in May 2019, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.2669547) ○Requires additional skills ○More is demanded of them than of others ○Supports additional users ○Takes time ○Is it taken into account for promotion and evaluation? The Turing Way project illustration by Scriberia. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3332807 What is needed to achieve this cultural change?
6 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 ●Open science and the need for training and capacity building ●Context: ○ Particle physics, cosmology and astrophysics (HECAP) ○ Shared infrastructure, international collaboration and open science ● LA-CoNGA physics: ○ Results? Challenges? ○ and the future: EL-BONGO physics Outline LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics
7 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics Particle physics, cosmology and astrophysics ●The innate curiosity of human beings: ○How was the universe created? ○What is it made of? ○How has it evolved? ●To try to answer these questions: ○ Particle physicists study increasingly smaller scales of length ○ Cosmologists and astrophysicists look further and further into space to understand the physical constitution, formation, and evolution of celestial bodies We study the highest possible energies on Earth, observe natural cosmic radiation from violent astrophysical phenomena in the Universe, and process and interpret all this data within a coherent theoretical framework
8 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics Some of our current tools (1/3) ●Pierre Auger Observatory, cosmic ray detection experiment in Argentina ●1,600 detector tanks covering 3,000 km² ●International collaboration: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, USA, Europe ●Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US. ●1,200 scientists use the physical properties of light and space itself to detect gravitational waves. Collaboration of 100 institutes in 18 countries.
9 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator, in the French-Swiss border ●Billions of billions of protons travelling at 99.9999991% of the speed of light ●Circulate around the 27 km ring 11,000 times per second, guided inside the accelerator by thousands of magnets of different types and sizes ●One billion collisions per second Some of our current tools (2/3)
16 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 ●Open science and the need for training and capacity building ●Context: ○ Particle physics, cosmology and astrophysics (HECAP) ○ Shared infrastructure, international collaboration and open science ● LA-CoNGA physics: ○ Results? Challenges? ○ and the future: EL-BONGO physics Outline LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics
17 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics LA-CoNGA physics: a virtual research and learning network
18 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics What is LA-CoNGA physics? An Erasmus+CBHE (Capacity Building in Higher Education) project co-funded by the European Commission’s Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency: ●Responding to the strategy of the participating institutions and the capacity building in higher education strategy promoted by the EU ●January 2020-January 2024(extended 1 extra year due to COVID/pandemic) 11 universities from Latin America and Europe join efforts with other scientific and academic (CERN, CNRS, DESY, ICTP, IRFU, RedCLARA) and industrial partners (like the Italian instrumentation company CAEN & data science start-ups) to contribute to the modernisation, accessibility and internationalisation of higher education in Colombia, Ecuador, Perú and Venezuela
19 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics LA-CoNGA consortium Program Partners in Europe: ● Université Paris Cité (UPC), France (Coordinator) ● Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse, France (UPS) ● Technische Universität Dresden (TUD), Germany Program Partners in Latin America: ● Colombia : UIS (Bucaramanga), UAN (Bogotá) ● Ecuador : Yachay Tech (Ibarra), USFQ (Quito) ● Peru : UNI, UNMSM (Lima) ● Venezuela : UCV, USB (Caracas) Associated Partners: ● International research centers: CERN and ICTP ● National research centers: CNRS (FR), CEA (FR) DESY (GE) ● Industrial partners in Latin America and Europe ● Other academic partners in the Americas
20 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics Proof of concept: methodology and tools (1/2) ●A one year specialization (Master-level) common/cross-institutional for 8 institutions in Latin America ●Worked with the participating universities to have credits recognised for the course(s) followed by students ●Key subjects of study, skills highly in demand inside and outside academia: ○Data Science, emphasis in science reproducibility. Exercices based on open-access datasets ○Instrumentation ○Theory, a common conceptual field theory framework and two streams: High Energy Physics and Complex Systems An innovative syllabus for the region!
21 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics Proof of concept: methodology and tools (2/2) Re Documentos, Códigos Visibilidad WEB Gestión Grupos Inv Instrum-Lab Organización Eventos Operación remota Instrumentos, Realidad Virtual Conf-Lab ●An e-learning open-access platform MiLAB (developed in collaboration with redCLARA) ●Courses are thought partly remotely from Latin America, partly from Europe ●A mix of synchronous and asynchronous activities ○With extra academic support: individual mentorships, discussion forums, office hours, discussion sessions ●Remote access interconnected instrumentation labs ●Teaching material in Spanish (open access material). The common language was a great advantage! ●3-months research and/or industrial internships
22 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics LA-CoNGA physics: courses ●LA-CoNGA physics community included 3 cohorts: 2021, 2022, 2023 ●30 instructors from Latin America and Europe ●More than 50 students from 4 countries completed at least one full course in each cohort ○Between 10-15 students in internships each year ●More than 200 classes available open access (videos, documents, notebooks, datasets…) ●But also challenges like COVID, difficulties in accessing universities (instrumentation from home), internet connection bandwidth, inhomogeneity in terms of resources in the partner universities and students’ training as well as postgraduate students time dedication conditions in the region
23 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics LA-CoNGA physics: interconnected instrumentation Organised in 3 layers: ●Physical laboratory ○Located in a dedicated space ○Managed by control software ○Equipment must be accessible via a monitoring and control GUI ○Involves I/O hardware, ADC, etc ○Requires stable internet at both ends (recommended > 5 Mbps, < 100 ms latency) ●Communication ecosystem ○Facilitates interaction between teachers and students ○Includes management, documentation, and access to the laboratory ○MiLab: Messaging, repository, computing ●Content ○Generated by staff (guides, plans) ○Curriculum design ○Generated by students (data,reports) ﹤Risks ➕equipment usage ﹤ Access barriers
24 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics LA-CoNGA physics: beyond the courses ●Capacity is built beyond the zoom and lab rooms ○Other academic activities: cycle of seminars, mentorships ○Scientific outreach: workshops about science communication ○Transversal to other communities: hackatons, citizen science projects with high-schools in the region ●A community with values: ○Collaboration ○Diversity ○Open access ○Responsibility ○Innovation ○Respect
25 NAME OF PRESENTATION 2025 LA-CoNGA and EL-BONGO physics Hackathon Co-AFINA 2025 ●Fourth year of the event! ●Target: students at Latin American universities from different fields ●Challenges that can be solved using open data, in the following areas: open science, citizen science, educational initiatives, shared infrastructure, social impact of science ●Help us spread the word! @coafina_hackathon https://laconga.redclara.net/hackathon