Commission B4 WG Global VLBI Alliance

Description

Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), by its very nature, has always depended on international collaborations. Nowadays several formal VLBI networks exist, which in turn regularly form combined arrays. A Global VLBI Alliance (GVA) facilitates the flow of information between VLBI networks, including sharing strategies, technical developments for compatibility, logistics, operations, and user support. It also promotes, proposes and coordinates common observational campaigns with these existing networks, and encourage and support new VLBI activities, while increasing the visibility, scientific and societal impact of VLBI.

The GVA moreover facilitates the interaction with the users, and serves as contact point and framework of collaboration of the VLBI networks and other astronomical facilities, in view of the growing need of multi-messenger studies.