It will be located in the physics platform of Măgurele-Bucarest, one of three host-sites of the pan-European Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI), a world-class scientific research project dedicated to laser technology. Serving as a hub for international networking and collaboration in physics and applied mathematics, the Centre will work in close collaboration with the UNESCO International Basic Sciences Programme (IBSP) and the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (UNESCO/ICTP) in Trieste. It will participate in the International Year of Crystallography, 2014.

The Centre will provide advanced training and research for scientists from Central and Eastern European countries, and will also reach out to scientists from the least developed countries in Africa. An additional mandate will be the promotion of women in science.  The Centre will therefore contribute to both of UNESCO’s cross-cutting themes:  Priority Africa and Gender Equality.

The Director-General, during her speech at the Ceremony, paid tribute to all those whose work and dedication led to the creation of the Centre in Măgurele-Bucarest: Professor Sabin Stoica, a UNESCO chair-holder in Physics and the driving force behind the proposal, his colleagues at the Physics Cluster of Magurele-Bucharest, the Romanian National Commission for UNESCO, the Permanent Delegation of Romania to UNESCO, and the Romanian Ministry of  Education, Research, Youth and Sports, especially Her Excellency the Minister, Ecaterina Andronescu for making “the dream come true.”