This week’s meetings of Council brought some very good news for CERN: the budget for 2014 and the Medium Term Plan (MTP) were both approved, and contributions received from member states make the level of contributions received by mid-year 2013 consistent with previous years.
All of these things underline the strong commitment our member states have for CERN, and the level of support that our field enjoys around the world. Approval of the 2014 budget means level funding with indexation. In the current financial climate, this is a very good result for CERN, and an endorsement of the European model for long-term funding of science. The governance model of Europe’s eight Intergovernmental Research Organizations (EIROs) has stood the test of time, providing support for science stretching beyond the political cycle, and weathering economic highs and lows for close to 60 years.
Approval of the MTP equates to an endorsement of CERN’s strategy right into the LHC’s second long shutdown, LS2. It is the first step in implementing the new European Strategy for Particle Physics, allowing us to guarantee optimal exploitation of the LHC as far as the end of 2018, the first year of LS2.
In other news from Council, reports from fact-finding missions to Brazil, Israel and Russia have all been positive, taking all of these countries a step further along the path to CERN membership. Israel is an associate member in the pre-stage to membership, while Brazil and Russia are both applicants for associate membership. At the end of this year, we will be thanking Philippe Bloch for his service as the head of the Physics department, and welcoming Livio Mapelli into the role. Livio’s career began with a PhD at the University of Pavia, followed by stints at the Rutherford Laboratory and on UA2. In the 1990s, he led an important R&D project for LHC data acquisition systems, taking that expertise to the ATLAS collaboration when it was formed in 1996. He has been deputy head of the Physics Department since 2010.
Last but not least, this week also saw a change of leadership at Fermilab. After eight years at the helm, Pier Oddone is handing over to Nigel Lockyer. One very sure pair of hands is passing the baton to another, and I look forward to continuing the strong relationship between CERN and Fermilab that we have enjoyed since long before the beginning of my mandate.