The ceremony of the FORTH Award for Excellence in Academic Teaching "Vassilis XANTHOPOULOS - Stephanos PNEVMATIKOS" will be held at the main Hall of the old Parliament in Athens, on December 13 2019, at 18.00. The award will be presented by H.E. the President of the Hellenic Republic, Mr. Prokopios Pavlopoulos to Mr. Vassilis Kalfas, Professor of Philosophy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Mr Theodosis Tassios, Emeritus Professor in National Technical University of Athens will present the academic work of the awardee.

A Training Workshop and Presentation of new educational and electronic tools for Marine Pollution Protection and formation of a strong Environmental Consciousness took place on Thursday, November 21st at 8.30 at FORTH, in the framework of the Sea4All project (Erasmus +): "Developing critical thinking in schools on issues concerning marine pollution using innovative technologies (ICT)".

Nektarios Tavernarakis, Research Director at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) of the Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH), and Professor at the Medical School of the University of Crete, was elected Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

The 1st Prize in the category “Digital Literacy in Science Education” at the 11th Science on Stage Europe 2019 Festival was awarded, to members of the Biophotonics and Molecular Imaging Group of the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser of FORTH. This year’s festival was entitled “Skills for the future” and was held in Cascais Portugal from 31 October – 3 November 2019.

The Hellenic Data Protection Authority, the Foundation for Research and Technology- Hellas (FORTH) and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) successfully organized a training session for high school students entitled “Protecting Our Personal Data- The GDPR and the 40 Thieves” which took place on Tuesday, November 5th at the SNFCC Book Tower.

Research conducted by an international team of astronomers, published in the international scientific journal Nature, revealed an enormous nebula around an extreme form of a merging galaxy.

This year, FORTH’s Institute of Astrophysics introduced the "Kylafis Lecture”, in recognition of the outstanding 35-year scientific and administrative contribution of the Emeritus Professor of the University of Crete and Collaborating Faculty Member of FORTH, Mr. Nikolaos Kylafis. His unremitting efforts to preserve and develop the scientific excellence in the field of Astrophysics, at FORTH and the University of Crete, have played a key role in the success of the Astrophysics team, which was recognized by the founding of FORTH’s Institute of Astrophysics in 2018.

The 12th FORTH Scientific Retreat, organized under the auspices of His Excellency the President of the Hellenic Republic Mr. Prokopios Pavlopoulos, took place at the Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences (ICE-HT) in Patras, on October 15-16 2019.

The Hellenic Bioinformatics Scientific Society and the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH) organized an International Conference entitled "Precision Medicine, Biodiversity and Genomic Biology" with the Region of Crete as co-organizing authority and sponsor.