FLOW midterm evaluation
The Swedish Research Council are presently carrying out the midterm evaluation of the first 20 Linné centres, of which FLOW is one. On February 7 we had a visit by the expert panel for engineering sciences complemented by one "generalist", Neil Geddes (from the e-science area). The expert panel consisted of Prof H. Salemink, TU Delft (chairman), Prof. S. Bader, Argonne National Lab. USA, Prof. T. Basar, Univ. of Illinois, Prof. M. Miles, Univ. of Bristol and Prof. N. Adams, TU München (fluid dynamics expert).
The expert panel will write a report and the chairman is also part of the "generalist" committee, where the final decision will be taken on the future funding. The formal decision will actually be taken by the board of the Research Council (probably on June 16).
The panel that visited FLOW met 11 seniors and 11 PhD students and was given presentations of the different research areas. Dan Henningson presented the two areas of "Stability and transition" and "Flow control and optimization". Philipp Schlatter presented the two areas of "High Reynolds number turbulence, including geophysical flows and climate modeling" and "e-science in fluid mechanics". The third presentation was given jointly by Gunilla Efraimsson and Fredrik Lundell for the two areas of "Micro- and complex fluids" and "Low Mach-number aeroacoustics".
In the afternoon the panel also met our Rector, Peter Gudmundsson and the FLOW Board chairman Gunnar Landgren.
At the final discussion the panel expressed a very positive view of the
scientific quality and activities at FLOW and were impressed both by the presentations of the research areas and, not least, with the discussion with the group of PhD students.
Now we can just wait and hope for a positive outcome of the evaluation.
Many thanks to all who took part in the evaluation meeting and to everybody in the centre contributing to the high scientific quality and all other aspects of the success of FLOW.
Arne & Ardeshir