Category: Education and Training
2026 European Frequency and Time Seminar, registrations open soon
EFTS registration is a two-step process with application and approval by moderators.
- Applications start Monday, February 23 at 9:00 CET (Paris time)
- Decision on applications is expected by Monday, March 16
Please save the date now, inform coworkers, colleagues, and friends, and read carefully the Registration page.
The 14th European Frequency and Time Seminar will be in Besancon, France, June 29 to July 3, 2026.
The EFTS is a crash course where you attend lectures and do experiments every day at the lab sessions.
There is a capped number of places, and every year we have more requests than we can accept.
Further details are given below.
European Frequency and Time Seminar
Besancon, France, June 29 to July 3, 2026
The EFTS is an intensive full-week seminar intended to provide education and training with lectures and laboratory sessions. It targets a broad audience: Engineers, Ph.D. Students, Post-doctoral Fellows, Young Scientists, Newcomers, etc.
This seminar is original in the following:
- Broad spectrum of topics related to time and frequency
- Broad target audience, yet keeping high level education
- Balance between academic and applied issues
- True laboratory sessions (as opposite to demos). The attendees are expected to practice on a wide range of instruments made available.
We plan 23 lectures, 7.5 h hands-on labs in small groups, visits at the FEMTO-ST Institute and the Observatory of Besancon, social events, and an Astronomy Session on the “exact time” from stars.
Please look at the preliminary Program.
Doctoral Training on Atoms and Photons, École de Physique des Houches (France). June 22nd to July 3rd 2026
The school is primarily intended for PhD students and early-career researchers. Applications from women are strongly encouraged.
Christophe Daussy (LPL) – Winner of the 2024 Jean Perrin Prize of the French Society of Physics
Awarded by the French Physics Society, the Jean Perrin Prize recognizes particularly successful efforts to popularize science. In 2021, with the support of the French Optical Society, Christophe Daussy, a lecturer and researcher at the LPL, Sorbonne Paris Nord University, relaunched a project that was initially started within the Atouts Sciences association in 2015, for the International Year of Light. It was this educational kit project, called LightBox, that caught the attention of the jury for the Jean Perrin Prize of the French Society of Physics. FIRST-TF is a partner in the LightBox project, contributing to its funding
Doctoral school: Quantum Timekeepers 2025. Sep. 29 – Oct 3. Matera (Italy)
Quantum Timekeepers 2025: school for MSc students,PhD students & early-career postdocs interested in the fundamentals and latest developments of optical atomic clocks
Sep. 29 – Oct 3, 2025
Casa delle Tecnologie Emergenti
Via San Rocco 1 Matera, Italy
For questions please contact:
quantum.timekeepers@inrim.it
Quantum Saclay lecture series
Robin Corgier and Bess Fang are pleased to announce a specialized course on Quantum Sensing and Quantum Metrology, designed to provide a comprehensive introduction to both the fundamental principles and practical implementations of quantum-enhanced measurements.
- Dates: May 14 & 21, 2025
- Location: C2N Amphitheater
- Lecturers: Luis Orozco, Bess Fang, Robin Corgier
These lectures are open to Master’s students, PhD candidates, postdoctoral , and researchers.
The course is accredited by the doctoral schools EDOM, PHENIICS, AAIF, PIF, and IPP.
For the detailed program and registration: https://quantum-saclay.fr/course-announcement-quantum-sensing-quantum-metrology
QREV25 – Thematic School From the First to the Second Quantum Revolution – 9 to 12 june 2025 – Peyresq (France)
We are pleased to announce that registration is now open for QREV25, the thematic school “From the First to the Second Quantum Revolution – Theory and Applications »,
taking place June 9-12, 2025, in Peyresq (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France, https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peyresq).
The school will feature lectures (in English) by leading experts on recent advances in quantum technologies, quantum optics, quantum information, and quantum metrology.
It will be close in mind to the thematic school organised in 2021 (see https://qrevolutions21.sciencesconf.org/) about similar topics.
The school is open to master students with a good background in quantum physics and PhD students as well. We have enough resources to finance integrally the costs of the stay for several participants.
The website https://qrevolutions25.sciencesconf.org/ provides more details about the school (e.g. the registration process, and, if necessary, the applications for requesting funding and support).
In the meanwhile, do not hesitate to ask questions and/or express your interest at the address thomas.durt@centrale-med.fr
Note that a free bus shuttle will be organised from Marseille with a stop in Nice (train station and airport) to Peyresq back and forth at the beginning and the end of the school.
Les Houches cold atoms school: “Quantum metrology: from optomechanics to tests of fundamental physics”. October 20th-31st, 2025
Les Houches cold atoms school “Quantum metrology: from Optomechanics to tests of fundamental physics”, will take place in Les Houches, France, from Oct 20 to Oct 31, 2025.
The deadline to apply is July 15, 2025. Please pre-register on the website: https://leshouches2025-metrology.quantumoptics.fr/
International School of Physics “Enrico Fermi”: Future Needs for Metrology, Varenna (Italy). 9th to 18th July 2025
Directors
Martin J.T. Milton – BIPM, Paris (France)
Diederik S. Wiersma – LENS, Sesto Fiorentino FI and INRiM, Torino (Italy)
Cornelia Denz – PTB, Berlin (Germany)
Dolores Del Campo – CEM, Madrid (Spain)
Bad Honnef Physics School on “Frontiers of Quantum Metrology for New Physics Searches”. Application deadline: February 28, 2025
Bad Honnef Physics School on “Frontiers of Quantum Metrology for New Physics Searches”, which will take place from May 11–16, 2025, at the Physikzentrum Bad Honnef, Germany. The application deadline is February 28, 2025.
The program entails a series of lectures delivered by renowned experts in the domains of quantum sensors, precision metrology, and particle physics aimed at students in a wide range of AMO, quantum metrology, and particle physics fields. This school will provide an excellent opportunity for graduate students and early-career researchers to engage with leading experts in the field of quantum metrology and its applications to new physics searches. The scientific program is organized by Marianna Safronova (University of Delaware) and Naceur Gaaloul (University of Hannover).
For further details and application information, please refer to the official event page: https://www.dpg-physik.de/veranstaltungen/2025/quantum_metrology_for_new_physics_searches
Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions to msafrono@udel.edu.
CCTF capacity building activity on resource sharing
We are happy to inform you that the CCTF capacity building activity on resource sharing to improve national and international timekeeping has started!
Following the CCTF recommendations, with the support of the IEEE UFFC society and together with a secondee at the BIPM, Dr Bharath Vattikonda from NPL India, the first courses in Time and Frequency are available on the BIPM e-learning platform. https://e-learning.bipm.org/
1) Course on TIME TRANSFER THROUGH GNSS PSEUDORANGE MEASUREMENTS
The course aims to provide knowledge and processing capacity on time transfer through GNSS pseudorange measurements.
It includes a tutorial and interactive open-source software with a dedicated user manual and video demonstration.
Please enroll and start testing the processing of your CGGTTSS file
https://e-learning.bipm.org/course/view.php?id=74
This will help your evaluation of time transfer links and also the validation of your CGGTTS data before sending to the BIPM.
Please send us any feedback and if you have questions or suggestions, you can contact Bharath at tf.cbkt@bipm.org
2) Course that summarizes the CCTF Technical Exchanges organized by the CCTF WG TAI and WG Algorithms
In collaboration with the WG TAI and WG Algorithms we are organizing online technical exchange meetings allowing UTC laboratories to exchange their experience and to support the capacity building and the possibility of collaboration.
The Technical Exchange meetings are recorded, and the videos are publicly available on the BIPM eLearning page
https://e-learning.bipm.org/course/view.php?id=82
(The presentations are available on the WG TAI dedicated web page for the people that attended the meetings).
3) Course on TIME & FREQUENCY CAPACITY BUILDING by RESOURCE SHARING
As you may remember, the CCTF capacity building programme is based on shared resources, and we would like to start the collection of possible training resources that you may want to make available.
The course aims to offer a large variety of tools, from reference papers, to presentations, tutorials, e-learning course, and open-source software modules to help the education in the field of time and frequency metrology with particular attention to the realization of a time scale UTC(k).
The topics are subdivided in 15 categories, and you will find a presenting page on the BIPM eLearning page
https://e-learning.bipm.org/course/view.php?id=76
The list of the topics is as follows:
- Time and Frequency Overview
- Requirements for setting up a UTC(k) Time Scale Lab
- Statistical tools for Clock Characterization
- Measurement Techniques of Time and Frequency
- Time scale Generation and Operation
- Timescale Algorithms
- GNSS Time Transfer Link
- Two Way Satellite Time and Frequency Transfer Link (TWSTFT)
- Time and Frequency Transfer Over Optical Fiber
- Data Exchange (Interface Document) with BIPM
- BIPM products
- Dissemination of UTC(k)
- Redundant Laboratory for the back-up generation of UTC(k)
- Primary and Secondary Frequency Standards in UTC and UTC(k)
- Current Topics Under Discussion at CCTF
Could you please start thinking if you have availability of any material that could be suggested in this list? Would you be available to develop a new tool? Please contact us at tf.cbkt@bipm.org to propose your material.
All the other UTC labs will be able to take advantage of what you have developed for your lab!
We would be grateful to have your feedback, at least as a draft, by the end of May 2024
We sincerely hope that the CCTF Capacity building activity based on shared resources may be attractive and useful to all.
Thanks for any feedback to tf.cbkt@bipm.org
Marina, Liz, Bharath, Patrizia and Giulio