The start of the academic year is known in France as la rentrée. It is a pivotal moment when, perhaps more so than elsewhere in Europe, the whole of society gets back into the swing of things after the summer break, which traditionally ends in late August. This break has been a welcome opportunity to refresh ourselves after the OPTIQUE Bourgogne Franche-Comté congress held in Dijon from 6 to 10 July 2026. With a record attendance of 730 participants, this memorable event brought together the entire French optics and photonics community. For this new rentrée, the SFO is building on this momentum to implement its planned initiatives. The first of these was a visit by a SFO delegation to the Institut Fresnel in Marseille. In the wake of this inaugural visit, the plan is to establish a regular cadence of two trips per year to France ' s prominent optics and photonics research laboratories, allowing for a deeper knowledge of their advanced research while also promoting the SFO ' s activities within the community. Two thematic schools are planned for the first half of 2027: our annual school at the iconic site of Les Houches, which in 2027 will focus on AI for photonics( 4 – 9 April), as well as the new edition of the school organised by the Lidar Club, to be held at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence( 6 – 11 June). In addition, there will be two conferences organised with our clubs: OptDiag, organised by the Photonics and Life Sciences Club( PSV) at the Institut Langevin in Paris( 19 – 21 May 2027); and the guided optics club conference, JNOG, in Autrans( 29 June – 2 July). Finally, to mark the bicentenary of Augustin Fresnel ' s death, the SFO will be partnering with the French Physical Society( SFP) on a series of initiatives. These will include dedicated articles published simultaneously in Photoniques and the SFP ' s journal Reflets de la Physique, as well as a special event day to be held in September 2027. The programme is therefore packed and exciting. It will keep the SFO busy serving the community right up until the start of the next rentrée!

Antoine Godard, Philippe Grangier, François Salin Presidents of SFO

IGNACIO MORENO President of the European Optical Society

The EOS Annual Meeting, EOSAM 2026, took place in Finland for the first time, from August 24-28 in the beautiful city of Tampere. Chaired by Goëry Genty and Juha Toivonen( Tampere University), Jyrki Saarinen( University of Eastern Finland), Elina Koistinen( EOS Executive Director) and myself, the EOS flagship event was a great success. Scandic Rosendahl Conference Center by lake Pyhä provided a perfect environment for focused discussion and networking, and Tampere’ s pleasant late-summer weather offered an enjoyable break from the hot European summer. EOSAM2026 gathered over 500 participants from over 30 countries, featuring 7 plenary speakers – including Nobel Prize Laureate Prof. Anne L’ Huillier – 9 tutorials, 60 parallel sessions, 44 invited talks, 223 oral presentations, 112 posters, and 23 exhibitors. Two special plenary sessions were organized: the session dedicated to Optics & Photonics education featured presentations from EPIC, Phortify, the CARLA project, and the Erasmus Mundus master programs, while a round table on moving from applied research to industrial deployment brought together panelists from companies such as Thales, VTT, Picophotonics, and Winse Power. Parallel sessions were structured around 8 topical meetings( TOM) and 5 focused sessions. A joint session with the Optical Society of Korea( OSK), featuring OSK President Prof. Donghyun Kim and other Korean invited speakers, highlighted EU – Korea collaboration opportunities following Korea’ s integration into EU project partnerships. As in previous editions, a topical issue on EOSAM 2026 has been launched on the open-access journal JEOS-RP with significant APC discounts for EOS members. Next year, EOSAM 2027 will move to Wroclaw, Poland, from September 27 to 30. Save the dates and follow the EOS newsletter, social channels and website( https:// www. europeanoptics. org /) for updates on another exciting edition of EOSAM!

Ignacio Moreno, Professor at Universidad M. Hernández, President of EOS

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