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BritGrav 2026, April 9-10 in Cardiff

The 26th BritGrav meeting will be hosted by the Gravity Exploration Institute at the School of Physics and Astronomy at Cardiff University.

The meeting will be held on the 9th and 10th of April 2026.

The aim of BritGrav is to bring together early-career researchers working on all aspects of gravitational physics, including astrophysics, cosmology, general relativity, quantum gravity, gravitational-wave data analysis and instrumentation.

Following the BritGrav tradition, the meeting will consist of short talks, with priority given to PhD students and postdocs. The meeting has no registration fee. Limited funding will be available from the IOP Gravitational Physics Group to support travel for PhD students based in the UK and Ireland. You may request travel support by emailing the organisers. See also the logistics page.

At the end of the meeting, a prize for the Best Student Talk, sponsored by the IOP Publishing Group, will be awarded.

Local organising committee: Fabio Antonini, Isobel-Romero Shaw, Parthapratim Mahapatra, Mukesh Singh, Beth Flanagan, Fani Dosoupolou, Ohkyung Kwon, Sama Al-Shammari, Ruaraidh Dumbreck, Meryl Kinnear

For any enquiries, please contact us:
Isobel Romero-Shaw: romero-shawi(at)cardiff.ac.uk
Fabio Antonini: antoninif(at)cardiff.ac.uk

BritGrav 26 is supported by the Institute of Physics and Cardiff University.

Conference Website

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Massive Black Hole Spin Workshop, April 21-24 2026, Edinburgh

Astrophysical black holes can be entirely described by just two properties: their mass and their spin. While masses of black holes have been extensively studied, black hole spin remains poorly understood. This is because spin is both much more difficult to observe and more complex to model. Nevertheless, spin is no less integral to the evolution of massive black holes over time, and the role they play in shaping their host galaxies.

This workshop is a chance to discuss the nature and evolution of massive black hole spin from both an observational and theoretical point of view. It aims to bring together the theoretical and observational communities to advance our collective understanding of black hole spin evolution. In this workshop we will focus on the evolution of the massive black hole spin distribution across cosmic time, as informed by analytic models, numerical simulations as well as multi-frequency and multi-messenger observations.  Theoretical sessions will cover simulations and analytic models, from accretion-disc scale phenomena via the impact of binaries and inspiral on massive black hole spin to a discussion on what we can learn from galaxy scale and cosmological simulations on the spin distribution of massive black holes. Observation-focused sessions will include gravitational waves, X-ray based and interferometry-based spin measurements, and those based on transient events. The goal of this workshop is to bring together theorists and observers to exchange state-of-the-art insights and guide future efforts to maximise the understanding of black hole spin across cosmic time.

Core questions include:

– When and where can we observe massive black hole spin?

– What can we learn about massive black hole spin from current theoretical and numerical efforts on different astrophysical scales?

– What observations do we need most to constrain models?

– Where should modelling efforts be focused to make the most of the existing and upcoming observational missions?

– What do we need to prepare to make the most of upcoming missions?

Confirmed invited speakers so far

  • Matthew Liska
  • Davide Gerosa
  • Filip Husko
  • Margherita Giustini

 ** Please note there is no attendance fee for this workshop**

If you are interested in attending this workshop, please register by clicking on the registration section of this page. We will confirm your registration if your abstract is accepted.

Registration is now open and will close on the 19th of January 2026.

Please be aware of this Travel Scam! 

If you received emails from travellerpoint(dot)org (or another travel company), please be careful. The email asks about arrival and departure dates to Edinburgh and offers a hotel booking form where they ask for credit card details.
Please, ignore the emails and do not reply nor click on any link given by them. You can also block the domain on your email client.
Our official emails are all from this website’s domain “@ed.ac.uk” (usually, sopa.events@ed.ac.uk). Please avoid giving private information to external sources. 

Workshop Website

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School on Gravity, Niels Bohr Institute, June 22-26 2026

Understanding the gravitational interaction is one of the great scientific endeavors of the 21st century. The Nobel Prize-winning discovery of gravitational waves in 2015, and subsequent detections by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration, have marked a revolutionary step forward in physics and astrophysics by opening an entirely new window for exploring the Universe. Future upgrades to these detectors, along with upcoming facilities such as LISA and the Einstein Telescope, promise even more breakthrough discoveries that the next generation of scientists will need to interpret.

The School on Gravity (22–26 June 2026, Copenhagen) will introduce junior scientists—graduate students and advanced undergraduates with a background in general relativity—to a wide range of foundational topics in the exciting new field of gravitational wave physics. Topics will span from the theory of motion, to new challenges introduced by quantum physics, to the astrophysics of black holes and source modeling for gravitational-wave detectors.

The program is as follows:

Lectures on Black Holes and Neutron Stars (how, when and where they are born, how they spin, how many, when do they merge, how many merge).
Lecturer: Lieke van Son (Radboud University)

Lectures on Motion (the two body problem in General Relativity).
Lecturer: Julio Parra Martinez (IHES)

Lectures on Completing Einstein (why does General Relativity need completion, what type of effects should we be on look out for, where would they manifest themselves).
Lecturer: Gustavo Turiaci (U. Washington, Seattle)

Lectures on Environments (which type of environments, how do they affect strong field gravity, how do we model them, impact on gravitational wave signals).
Lecturer: Laura Sberna (Nottingham University)

Please apply at: https://the-center-of-gravity.com/events/the-school-on-gravity-from-motion-to-commotion-2026/

We require submission of a single pdf file containing a two-page CV, up to half a page motivation letter, and a signed support letter from an advisor on letterhead.

Deadline: February 01, 2026.

The number of seats is limited, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.

The School on Gravity will take place in the legendary Auditorium A of the Niels Bohr Institute, inviting students and lecturers to challenge current paradigms in gravitational physics in the spirit of the quantum revolution that unfolded in this very room. This is the first of a series of annual school organized by the Center of Gravity (CoG).

The members of the Scientific Organizing Committee for the School of Gravity are Vitor Cardoso (Director of CoG), Emil Bjerrum-Bohr, Jose Ezquiaga, Troels Harmark, Niels Obers, Marta Orselli, Alessia Platania, Johan Samsing, Maarten van de Meent, Ziqi Yan.

Local Organizing Committee: Vitor Cardoso and Jose Ezquiaga

Contact: sog(at)the-center-of-gravity.com