Minutes of the 18th AONSA Executive Committee Meeting
Date: 09:00-14:30, July 9 (Sunday), 2017
Place: Daejeon Convention Center, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
Participants: 20[Board Members]
Sung-Min Choi (President; KNBUA; KAIST)
Kazuyoshi Yamada (Vice-president; JSNS; KEK)
Chris Ling (Secretary; ANBUG; U. Sydney)
Evvy Kartini (Member-at-Large; BATAN; Indonesian community)[Members]
Jae-Ho Chung (KNBUA; Korea U)
Ya-Sen Sun (TWNSS; National Central U)
Kookheon Char (KNBUA; Seoul National U)[Observers]
Samrath Chaplot (NSSI; BARC)
Yukinobu Kawakita (J-PARC)
Kenji Nakajima (J-PARC)
Toshiji Kanaya (J-PARC)
Mitsuhiro Shibayama (JRR3)
Jamie Shulz (ANSTO)
Chang-Hee Lee (HANARO)
Fangwei Wang (CSNS)
Roppon Picha (Thai Community; TINT)
Masayasu Takeda (JAEA)
Iwan Sumirat (BATAN)[Special Observers]
Sungil Park (HANARO)
John White (Australian National University; former President)1[Apologies]
Wen-Hsien Li (Past President; TWNSS; NCU)
Hsiung Chou (Public Relations Officer; TWNSS National Sun Yat-Sen U)
Dongfeng Chen (Treasurer; CNSS; CIAE)
Saibal Basu (Member-at-Large; NSSI; BARC)KG Suresh (NSSI; IIT Bombay)
SM Yusuf (NSSI; BARC)
Hideki Seto (KEK)Yoshiaki Kiyanagi (JSNS; Nagoya U)
Darminto (INSS; Institute of Technology, Surabaya)
Yuntao Liu (CARR)
Hesheng Chen (CNSS; IHEP)
Guang-ai Sun (CMRR)
Ian Gentle (ANBUG; U Queensland)
Abdul Aziz Mohamed (Malaysian Community; UNITEN)

Group photo of the 18th AONSA Executive Committee Meeting in Daejeon, Republic of Korea

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Minutes
1. Opening remarks by AONSA President Sung-Min Choi
AONSA President Sung-Min Choi welcomed all members and observers to Daejeon and toICNS-2017.
2. Approval of Agenda
The Agenda of the 18th AONSA EC meeting was approved by the EC.
3. Approval of Minutes of the 17th AONSA EC Meeting
The Minutes of the 17th AONSA EC meeting in Mumbai, India, which was circulated to theEC members and observers through email previously, were distributed to all the EC
participants as hard copies at the meeting. The minutes were approved.
4. Report from the AONSA Office
T Kanaya presented a detailed report on the operations and outlook for the AONSA Office(Appendix 1). Of particular note, the new website was launched in March, 2017, retaining thesame domain (aonsa.org); and the bank account of the AONSA office (except the account ofAONSA Prize) has been moved to the Bank of Mitsui-Sumitomo Tsukuba branch, to reducethe cost of international money transfers.
The AONSA Office continues to work well thanks to the excellent work of Chikako Doda.
However, she will retire from her current position in March 2018, making the need for along-term solution more urgent. Izumi Kuwahara is back as a secretary of Prof. Kanaya fromthis April, and she also helps the AONSA office as a substitute for Chiyoko Yanada.
The EC thanked T Kanaya, H Seto and J-PARC for their continuing support in hosting theAONSA Office, and C Doda for her outstanding work in the service of AONSA.
Action: Board members to discuss a the future of the AONSA Office and report back to theEC with their recommendation on the best way forward.
5. Discussions and formal matters3

5.1. Financial matters
C Ling presented the Annual Fee, Prize Fund and Budget Plan on behalf of D Chen
(Appendix 2). The capital funds are steadily increasing (by approximately US$5000 p.a.), andthe point was again made that in the long term, we should consider the best use of these funds,
which are presently in a low-interest savings account. The report was accepted.
5.2. AONSA Prize 2017
K Yamada reported that the AONSA Prize 2017 will be presented to Prof. Nobuo Niimura ofIbaraki University at ICNS-2017, at a ceremony just before the conference banquet. The
certificate and medal have been prepared by the AONSA Office.
5.3. AONSA Young Research Fellows
E Kartini noted that it was very difficult to find suitable candidates for the AONSA YRF fromdeveloping countries, because the funding was not always sufficient. J Shulz asked whether it
would be possible to combine AONSA YRF funding with IAEA funding for developingcountries. SM Choi said that this was indeed considered in the early stages of planning for theAONSA YRF, but that the very different schedules and criteria made coordination
problematic. Alternatively, if some additional funding could be obtained from the facilities, it
may be possible to leverage additional IAEA funding under a separate category of “AONSAIAEA Fellows”. The Facility Directors expressed in-principle support for this idea.
Action: SM Choi to discuss the possibility of joint AONSA-IAEA Fellowships with the Facility
Directors and the IAEA (starting with Danas Ridikas).
5.4. 3rd Asia-Oceania Conference on Neutron Scattering (AOCNS-2019)
Y-S Sun reported on the status of TWNSS preparations to host AOCNS-2019. The website is
now active, at https://sites.google.com/view/aocns2019/. The organisers are hoping for 350450 participants from AONSA member countries, plus ~100 local students.
E Kartini asked whether there would be proceedings published from the meeting, and pointed
out that this was a very important criterion for many potential participants from developing
countries. SM Choi noted that there would be proceedings from ICNS-2017 published in4

Physica B, and that a similar arrangement could potentially be made. C Ling and T Kanaya
confirmed that no proceedings were published for the 1st or 2nd AOCNS.
5.6. AONSA Neutron SchoolY Kawakita reported on preparations for the joint 9th AONSA Neutron School / 2nd Neutronand Muon School, being held at J-PARC MLF from 16-20 November 2017 (Appendix 3). The
website is active at http://www.cross-tokai.jp/9thAONSAschool/. 40 participants will beselected, more than half of whom will be from overseas. The registration fee will be 30,000
JPY. The school organizers may provide limited financial support to the participants fromdeveloping countries depending on the availability of funds.
5.7. ICNS2017 in Korea
K Char presented a report from the organizers of the ICNS2017 in Korea (Appendix 4). The
number of pre-paid participants is just under 600, but this is expected to increase as the total
number of exhibitors and participants who submitted abstracts is closer to 800. The EC
congratulated the local organisers on their work in making ICNS-2017 happen.
5.8. AONSA Newsletters and Homepage
AONSA Public Relations Officer H Chou (not attending) conveyed (via C Ling) that thatnext newsletter (Volume 8 Number 2) is scheduled for release on August 14, 2017. To meetthis deadline, all items must be submitted to the AONSA Office for editing by July 17, oneweek after the EC meeting.
It was noted that this Newsletter should contain reports on ICNS-2017 and the AONSA Prize
2017, which may require slightly more time to prepare.
5.9. Activities Related to SE Asia and Other Non-member Countries
SM Choi reminded the EC that our e-mail distribution list includes a number of non-member
countries in the region – Mongolia, Vietnam, and the Philippines – in addition to Malaysiaand Thailand, which usually send observers. This is crucial to keeping dialogue open.
5.10. Cooperation with NSSA and ENSA
5S-M Choi reported that a lunch meeting between the AONSA President and ENSA Chair willtake place at ICNS-2017, but that unfortunately the President of NSSA was unable to attend.
Their respective Board members have also been invited. This follows recent meetings at
ECNS in Zaragoza, Spain, and ACNS in Long Beach, USA. The EC expressed support forthe continuation of such meetings, so that the societies can help each other and stay abreast of
the latest high-level developments.
Action: SM Choi to suggest to the NSSA President and ENSA Chair that mutual invitations beextended to our regional meetings as a matter of course, to facilitate regular contact.
6. Reports from Neutron Associations-ANBUG (Appendix 5)
INSS (Appendix 6)
JSNS (Appendix 7)
KNUBA (Appendix 8)TWNSS (Appendix 9)
NSSI

7. Other Business
AONSA Vice President K Yamada announced that he would be unable to take up thePresidency in 2018 for a combination of personal and private reasons. The EC expressed theirunderstanding and support for his decision.
This raised the question of who would become President for the next term, and highlighted
the fact that the procedures for identifying Vice Presidents (and President in the event that theVice President cannot continue) are not well defined. The EC agreed that we need to establish
clear guidelines, as soon as possible.
Action: The Board to draft guidelines for the identifying candidates for Vice President, andfor the event that the normal succession from Vice President to President is broken, andreport back to the EC as soon as possible so that they can be ratified at the next EC meeting.
8. Closing remarks
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In closing the meeting, President S-M Choi thanked Sungil Park for organizing the logisticsof the EC and FDM, and wished all the participants an enjoyable and productive time in
Daejeon for ICNS-2017.

7Appendix 10: Calendar of AONSA Activities
Year 2017
DateEventsthMar 10-13

7 Taiwan-Japan Joint Meeting on X-ray and Neutron Scattering

May 26HANARO Symposium (KAERI, Korea)

July 913th AONSA Facility Directors’ Meeting (Daejeon, Korea)

July 918th AONSA EC Meeting (Daejeon, Korea)

July 9-13

ICNS-2017 (Daejeon, Korea)

Sep 25-27

International Nuclear Science, Technology and Engineering Conference(iNuSTEC2017, Uniten, Kajang, Malaysia)

Oct 8-12

International Conference on Nuclear Science and Technology Application(Yogyakarta, Indonesia)

Nov 16-20

9th AONSA Neutron School / 2nd Neutron and Muon School (Tokai, Japan)

Nov 2513th AONSA Facility Directors’ Meeting (TINT, Bangkok, Thailand)Nov 2619th AONSA EC Meeting (TINT, Bangkok, Thailand)Nov 27

TINT Neutron Symposium (TINT, Bangkok, Thailand)

Dec 2-3

17th JSNS Annual Meeting (Fukuoka, Japan)

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