In SPECTRUM, OCA contributes as Radio Astronomy domain expert community.
The Observatoire of Côte d’Azur (OCA) will appear as CNRS third party through their Joint Research Unit UMR 7293 Laboratoire J.-L. Lagrange. OCA is a world-leading institute in the field of the Science of Universe. OCA is organised around three poles: Astrophysics, Geophysics and Gravitational waves. The Astrophysics part is concentrated within one institute, the Lagrange laboratory, a joint research unit depending on three agencies: the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur (OCA) and the Université Nice Côte d’Azur.
Lagrange aims to develop multidisciplinary research and teaching activities in the field of astrophysics, cosmology, optical instrumentation and imaging, fluid mechanics and applied mathematics. This research is supported and enabled by unique skills, organised transverse groups in physical methods of observation and high performance numerical computing (HPC, massive parallelism, 3D visualisation). Lagrange has leading roles in several major international projects (e.g. MATISSE at ESO; GAIA and Euclid ESA satellites) and is the European centre to access the interferometric facility CHARA at the Mount Wilson Observatory (California) in remote mode.
Since 2008, OCA has been more and more actively involved in the scientific and technical preparation of SKA and precursor/pathfinder instruments, with the participation to LOFAR, ASKAP and MeerKAT continuum survey projects, as well as the affiliation to the core team of the SKA Science Working Group “Extragalactic Continuum”. OCA is the employer of the SKA-France Director who, since 2016, is leading the coordination of the French participation in the SKA project, and, since 2020, is chairing the European SKA Forum.
