The Users Committee (UC) represents ESO's astronomical community at large and acts as an advisory body to the ESO Director General on matters related to the performance, scientific access, operation and user interfaces to the La Silla Paranal Observatory and ALMA. The annual meeting of the UC is scheduled on 20 and 21 April 2023. During the UC meeting updates from ESO and feedback from the user community are exchanged and openly discussed. Each year one topic is explored in more detail and this year the Special Topic session is dedicated to Archive Science.

The ESO research studentship programme provides an outstanding opportunity for PhD students to experience the exciting scientific environment at one of the world's leading observatories. ESO's studentship positions are open to students enrolled in a university PhD programme in astronomy or related fields. Students accepted into the programme work on their doctoral project under the formal supervision of their home university supervisor, but they come to ESO to work and study under the co-supervision of an ESO staff astronomer for a period of between six months and two years.

The Call for Proposals for Period 112 is out, and a short session will be offered to present the material you will need to write a proposal for the La Silla Paranal Observatory. This session will take place online Friday 3 March 2023 at 12 CET, using the MS Teams platform.

The Call for Proposals for observations at ESO telescopes in Period 112 (1 October 2023 - 31 March 2024) has been released. Please consult the Period 112 document for the main news items and policies related to applying for time on ESO telescopes. All technical information about the offered instruments and facilities is contained on ESO web pages that are linked from the Call. The proposal submission deadline is 12:00 CEST 28 March 2023.

Olivier Chesneau, one of the most active and prolific members of the optical interferometry community, passed away in May 2014, at the age of 41. To honour his work in this field, his home institute, the Laboratoire J.-L. Lagrange at the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in France, and ESO established a prize in his memory. Since 2015, the prize has been awarded biennially for the best PhD thesis completed in the field of high angular resolution optical astronomy.