We are pleased to announce the conference Growing-up at high redshift: from proto-clusters to galaxy clusters to be held in Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain, on September 10 to 13, 2012.

The conference website is: 

http://www.sciops.esa.int/index.php?project=CONF2011&page=CLUSTERS2012 

This is a science meeting sponsored by the ESAC Faculty (European Space Astronomy Centre, European Space Agency), to discuss the new results, science opportunities and open questions in the field of high-redshift galaxy clusters and proto-clusters.

Topics of the conference:

- efficient techniques to search for high-z clusters (X-rays, SZ, NIR/optical,...)

- evolution of  galaxy populations in high-density environments in contrast with the field

- how is the build up of proto-clusters related to the peak of star-formation activity and black-hole accretion?

- what is the evolutionary sequence which lead star formation to migrate from high-z overdensities to low density regions in the local Universe ? 

- what was the role of feedback in this process ?

- properties of the most distant clusters and proto-clusters

- thermal and non-thermal emission from the (proto) cluster gas

- the impact of the most massive clusters on Cosmology

The conference will consist of a number of invited and contributed talks and posters.

Registration will be open by January 1, 2012. The deadline for Abstract submission is 1 May, 2012.

There will be no conference fee. We have limited support for PhD students who show the need for financial support (send an email to distantclusters_esac2012 "AT" sciops.esa.int for more details).

Science Organizing Committee:

• Piero Rosati (ESO, Garching, Germany) [/co-chair/]
• Bruno Altieri (ESA, Spain) [/co-chair/]
• James Barlett (JPL - Caltech, APC - Université Paris Diderot)
• Chris Lidman (AAO, Australia)
• Simona Mei (Observatoire Paris-Meudon, France)
• Paola Popesso (MPE Garching, Germany)
• Huub Rottgering (U. of Leiden, The Netherlands)
• Joana Santos (ESA, Spain)
• Masayuki Tanaka (IPMU, Japan)
• Jon Willis (U. Victoria, Canada)

Local Organizing Committee:

B. Altieri , J.M. Castro Ceron, D. Coia, L. Conversi, L. Metcalfe,  M. Sanchez-Portal, J.Santos, I. Valtchanov, A. Willis (ESAC)

Please spread the information in your Institutes to all those who might be interested.

We are looking forward to seeing you at the conference.