The European Solar Telescope (EST) project has taken a decisive step towards construction with the establishment of the Board of Governmental Representatives (BGR), marking the first formal commitment at the governmental level to this European flagship in solar research. Until now, EST has been driven by a scientific consortium of universities and research institutions across Europe. The creation of the BGR transforms EST into a collaboration among European nations, whose national governments lend political support to the project and to the creation of a future European Solar Telescope

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has successfully completed a technological milestone of great significance: the “Redundancy of the RedIRIS Tenerife–La Palma Maritime and Terrestrial Optical Network” project. This new and robust optical communications network guarantees the continuity of the data highways for the Canary Islands’ observatories — the Teide Observatory (OT) in Tenerife and the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM) in La Palma — ensuring their connectivity in the event of any technical or environmental contingency. This achievement is the result of a joint

From 13 to 17 April 2026, the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) hosted the ExGal-Twin 2nd Radio Astronomy School and 2nd Project Meeting, key activities of the European project ExGal-Twin, coordinated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC). The event brought together researchers, students and technical staff from the IAC and the partner institutions: the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute (University of Groningen), the Institute for Computational Cosmology (Durham University), and the Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg (CNRS), reinforcing scientific collaboration and