ILCSC and ICFA meetings
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| Physicists discussed the future of the field at the ILCSC meeting in England. Photo: Barry Barish
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Last week, the meetings for the International Linear Collider Steering Committee and the International Committee for Future Accelerators took place in Oxford, England. This was my first meeting as chair of ICFA, succeeding KEK Director Atsuto Suzuki. One of the principal issues discussed at both meetings was a new organization for the worldwide linear collider effort. For some time now, the world's two large linear collider efforts – the ILC Global Design Effort and CLIC, the Compact Linear Collider - have been working on common issues applicable to both colliders. As we move into the next phase in the evolution of linear colliders it is important to bring the ILC and CLIC efforts under unified leadership.
The proposal approved by ICFA is to appoint one director that will be the overall leader for the linear collider effort. The LC Director will represent this effort to the worldwide science community and the funding agencies. Reporting to this LC Director will be three associate directors: one for the ILC; one for CLIC; and one for physics and detectors for both ILC and CLIC. While the new organization takes shape over the next year, ICFA approved a statement that continues the mandate of the ILC Global Design Effort to represent the plans for ILC R&D to the funding agencies.
Depending on the evolution and timing of discoveries at the LHC, the LC organization will evolve towards a single proposal for the appropriate linear collider. Eventually, to move any linear collider forward, a country or region must step up to host the machine and invest roughly half the needed capital.
The search for the first LC Director is now beginning. The Director will report to the Linear Collider Board, which will be composed of five members from each world region and a chair selected by ICFA. Because the Board is not yet in place, ICFA has appointed a six-member nominating committee to conduct the search:
Europe: Joachim Mnich (DESY) and Manfred Krammer (new ECFA Chair)
Americas: Pier Oddone (Fermilab) and William Trischuk (University of Toronto)
Asia: Sachio Komamiya (U of Tokyo) and Jie Gao (IHEP/Beijing)
If you are interested in being considered for the position of LC director or would like to nominate a colleague, please contact one of the committee members.
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