ISLAMABAD, March 16: International Scientific Spring-2013 (ISS) in which more than 20 foreign scientists and researchers along with 400 local participants from all over the country participated and presented their research papers concluded at the National Centre for Physics (NCP) on Saturday.

More than 150 lectures/presentations and posters were presented by foreign and local speakers during the five-day activity.

Prof Joseph Niemela of Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy, and Dr Hamid Saleem of NCP were the directors of the activity and both are hopeful that collaboration between the two centres will strengthen in the years to come.

While addressing the concluding ceremony, Dr Hamid Saleem, director-general NCP, strongly motivated the research community in Pakistan to attempt challenging problems that were essential for the economic stability and development of the country.

Dr Joseph Niemela said that ICTP would always support NCP in organising scientific activities with an aim to promote scientific culture in Pakistan.

Prior to this Dr Riffat Mahmood Qureshi, Director NCP, said that the main purpose of holding the ISS was to inspire young students and researchers to do quality research with enthusiasm and present the outcome of their scholarly work among a galaxy of experts in the relevant disciplines for questioning and criticism.

Foreign scientists from different universities of Algeria, China, Egypt, Italy, Iraq, Japan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, USA and UAE participated and presented their research papers.

The activity focused on the core areas of physics and its related fields like accelerator physics, particle physics, nanosciences and plasma physics.

It is worth mentioning that two Prof Harold W. Kroto and Dr Robert Kurl (Nobel Laureates) also delivered video lectures in this activity followed by question-answer sessions.