The Users Committee (UC) represents ESO's astronomical community at large and acts as an advisory body to the ESO Director General on matters related to the performance, scientific access, operation and user interfaces to the La Silla Paranal Observatory and ALMA. The annual meeting of the UC is scheduled on 25 and 26 April 2024. During the UC meeting updates from ESO and feedback from the user community are exchanged and openly discussed. Each year one topic is explored in more detail and this year the Special Topic session is dedicated to Large Programmes.

The deadline for proposal submission for Period 114 (1 October 2024 - 31 March 2025) was 21 March 2024: 859 valid proposals were submitted, of which 29 are Large Programmes.  On the VLT, the most demanded ESO instrument was MUSE with a request of 407 nights, followed by ESPRESSO with 249 nights. Probably due to the increasing popularity of ESPRESSO, the pressure on UVES has now reduced to 193 nights. The demand on the still new instrument ERIS keeps increasing, and is now 159 nights. HARPS/NIRPS on the ESO 3.6-metre telescope was the most demanded instrument at La Silla, with a combined request of 239 nights. 

The Atacama Large Millimeter and submillimeter Array (ALMA) has opened the Call for Proposals (CfP) for its 11th annual cycle. For this CfP, the Joint ALMA Observatory anticipates having 4300 hours of approved science time on each of the 12-m, 7-m, and the Total Power arrays.  Together, the 7-m Array and Total Power Array form the Atacama Compact Array (ACA), also known as the Morita Array.

For the past decade, Rob was instrumental in keeping a vibrant science life at ESO and has shared his immense research background with many young scientists. He has decided that the time has come to reorient himself and returns to Edinburgh. 

The Offices for Science are very pleased to present the 2024 ESO Fellows. Here is an introduction to the Fellows due to start in Garching and Chile later this year.

The ESO research studentship programme provides an outstanding opportunity for PhD students to experience the exciting scientific environment at one of the world's leading observatories. ESO's studentship positions are open to students enrolled in a university PhD programme in astronomy or related fields. Students accepted into the programme work on their doctoral project under the formal supervision of their home university supervisor, but they come to ESO to work and study under the co-supervision of an ESO staff astronomer for a period of between six months (Chile) / one year (Germany) and two years.

In its efforts to promote the scientific exchange among astronomers, the Directorate for Science at ESO continues to provide support and funding for the organisation of scientific workshops in Santiago and in Garching as well as co-funding for some external workshops. Science workshops are an essential component of ESO's programmes and represent a unique opportunity to promote and foster ideas and collaborations within the scientific community.

Congratulations to ESO Fellow Julia V. Seidel on being awarded the prestigious 2024 MERAC Prize for the Best Doctoral Thesis in Observational Astrophysics! A well-deserved honor for her exceptional groundbreaking research on climate and atmospheric circulation regimes of exoplanets.

The annual public release of ESO VLT/VLTI instrument data reduction software packages is scheduled for end of May 2024. Pre-built packages will be provided for Fedora 38 and 39 and on a best effort basis Fedora 40 (to be released in April) may be added later during 2024. For macOS, installation via MacPorts is supported and recommended.

For the seventh year in a row, observations conducted at ESO’s observatories have led to more than 1000 scientific publications in a year. Recently, the ESO Library, Documentation, and Information Services Department has updated their detailed statistics on publications using ESO data, presenting each facility's contributions in 2023.