The Horia Hulubei Foundation (HHF), in Romanian : Fundatia Horia Hulubei, (FHH) is a non-governmental, non-profit organization, created with the goal of contributing to the development of research and training in physics. HHF promotes the values of democracy in the Romanian scientific community and in its international contacts. HHF considers that the professional competence and the moral norms are the pillars which sustain a sound scientific activity.
HHF bears this name in the memory of the distinguished Romanian scholar, Horia Hulubei (1896 – 1972), the founding father of atomic physics in Romania. Horia Hulubei was not only a brilliant scientist, but also a dedicated professor and a person of high moral stature. At the 125th anniversary of his birth, in November 2021, a book devoted to his life, research and institutional achievements – Horia Hulubei: the Man and his Time – and at the 70th celebration of his death, in November 2022, the first two volumes of his lectures on Structure of matter were issued by the Horia Hulubei Publishing House (in Romanian: Editura Horia Hulubei), see the titles (8), (9) and (10) at the entry Horia Hulubei Publishing House. Hulubei’s personality remains a challenging example for the Romanian physics community.
HHF was created by the association of a group of physicists, many of them former collaborators or students of Professor Horia Hulubei, in September 4, 1992. HHF became a juridical person on March 14, 1994, by a decision of the Bucharest Court. It includes, as a separate department, a publishing house, as suggested in some previous lines. During its first 15 years, HHF was co-editor of the periodical Curierul de fizică (Physics Courrier), but it decided to withdraw from this activity, as the printing expenses became too high. HHF has been re-accredited as an institution of scientific research in 2009, according to the rules and regulations of ANCS, by the ANCS decision no. 9737/01.10.2009.
HHF is hosting the UNESCO Chair on Sustainable Development through Research and Education in Modern Physics, established in 2010. The initiative of establishing this Chair is due to the former ICTP Director Katepalli Sreenivasan, after a short visit in Romania – essentially, at Măgurele Platform – as the first step in the effort of creating here a UNESCO – category 2 institute, a so called ICTP-RO. However, the institutional evolution was different, but finally such an institute – named CIFRA – was created in 2018, as explained further on, in the second paragraph.
In April 2018, the Horia Hulubei Publishing House (in Romanian: Editura Horia Hulubei) has been registered, according to the new regulations, at the ISBN office of the National Library of Romania.
In September 20-21, 2018, after years of preparations made mainly by Prof. Sabin Stoica, Head of the UNESCO Chair at Horia Hulubei Foundation, with the support of UNESCO, of ICTP-Trieste, of several Romanian governmental institutions and of the Horia Hulubei Fundation, the International Center for Advanced Reaserch and Training in Physics (Centre International de Formation et Recherche Avancée en Physique – CIFRA) was opened, in Magurele. CIFRA was created on the basis of an agreement between UNESCO and the Romanian Government, as a UNESCO category B institute – the only one of this kind in Central and South-Eastern Europe.
The main objectives of CIFRA (cifra.infim.ro) are to provide facilities and opportunities for researchers from countries of this region, as well from less developed countries, and to conduct activities on science, science education and lifelong learning, in accordance with UNESCO goals.
As a recognition of Professor Stoica’s efforts of establishing CIFRA, the Romanian National Commission for UNESCO awarded him with a Diploma of Excellence, in a ceremony held on December 14, 2018. A photo of the diploma is available here.
2018 was also the year when the Horia Hulubei Publishing House, established by the late Mircea Oncescu in 1994, was registered at the ISBN Office of the National Library of Romania, according to the new regulations concerning the editorial activities, and became a department of the UNESCO Chair at HHF.
Another scientific and organizational effort of the HHF was the preparation of several scientific events, mainly workshops; here, again, the involvement of ICTP was essential. The first one was Trends in nanophysics: theory, experiment, technology (Sibiu, August 2009), organized under the auspices of ICTP, IAEA, IFIN-HH and other institutions, and the more recent (actually, a webinar), New results in nanophysics, bionanoscience, nanophotonics, and solar energy conversion, September 15, 2023, Măgurele – Bucharest. This succession of workshops – interrupted during the pandemic – was essential for stimulation of scientific research and dissemination in photovoltaics, nanophysics and photonics of several groups of performant physicists in Romania and other CEI countries. We remain very grateful to ICTP for this valuable support.