More than one hundred students from Latin America are advancing in specialized training in different areas of advanced physics through the Erasmus initiative of EL BONGÓ physics. The second semester of the first cohort features an academic offering of five micro-courses, through which students define their area of interest within one of the scientific communities brought together by the initiative: High Energy Physics; Astroparticles and Multimessenger Physics; Geophysics; Artificial Intelligence; and Computational Physics.
During the second semester, which seeks to strengthen specialized education for scientific research, students are taking at least two of the five micro-courses offered. Their contents cover topics including relativity and compact objects; medical physics; high energy physics; cosmic rays; computational tools and Artificial Intelligence; and statistical mechanics. This training model, with a strong collaborative emphasis, is supported by a scientific research community spanning Latin America and Europe.
Among the courses with the highest demand during the second semester of this first cohort are High-Performance Computing and AI Tools; Cosmic Ray Simulations, Muon Transport, and Detector Modeling with ARTI and Meiga; and General Relativity, Neutron Stars, and Multimessenger Astrophysics. Other micro-courses that have also attracted significant student interest include Radiation Transport in Living Matter: Problems and Applications and Field Theory Beyond High Energy Physics.
As part of this second stage of training, research internships are also planned for the final quarter of 2026. Funded by the project, this experience will allow students to temporarily join research groups at partner institutions. The countries selected to host the internships are Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Honduras, and El Salvador.
Among the selection criteria for obtaining the scholarship for students enrolled in the master’s degree programs that make up the EL BONGÓ physics learning circuit are having completed the required minimum number of credits and demonstrating a strong academic record in courses related to the selected knowledge community. In this regard, José Antonio López, representative of the Central University of Venezuela and the person responsible for designing the project’s scientific training program, explained that priority will be given to students enrolled in master’s programs at consortium institutions, as part of the initiative’s objective of strengthening these higher education programs in the field across Latin America.