International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics

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ICRA, the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics is an international research institute for relativistic astrophysics and related areas. Its members are seven Universities and four organizations. The center is located in Rome, Italy.

The International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics (ICRA) was founded in 1985 by Remo Ruffini (University of Rome "La Sapienza") together with Riccardo Giacconi (Nobel Prize for Physics 2002), Abdus Salam (Nobel Prize for Physics 1979), Paul Boyton (University of Washington), George Coyne (former director of the Vatican observatory), Francis Everitt (Stanford University), Fang Li-Zhi (University of Science and Technology of China). It became a legal entity in 1991 with the Ministerial Decree 22/11/1991 from the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research.^[1]

In 1978 Fang was assigned to host Ruffini, a guest of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. They gave joint university lectures and developed a profound friendship. In 1981 in China they published a small book introducing relativistic astrophysics that became revered among astrophysics students. In 1982 Fang and Ruffini organized the first international conference on astrophysics in China—the third Marcel Grossmann Meeting—and thereafter remained organizers of the Grossmann meetings. Together with Abdus Salam, Riccardo Giacconi, George Coyne, and Francis Everitt, they founded the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics (ICRA) in 1985.^[2] Physics Today

The International Center of Relativistic Astrophysics is located in the Department of Physics building at the main Campus of the University of Rome "Sapienza".

In 2005 ICRA has been among the founders of ICRANet, the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics Network. The national activities of research and teaching in Italy remained operative at ICRA in Rome, while international activities and coordination are now based in ICRANet in Pescara.