At its September meeting, the CERN Council formally launched the European Strategy for Particle Physics update

At its September meeting, the CERN Council formally launched the European Strategy for Particle Physics update, approving the establishment and composition of the groups that will steer the process, along with a detailed timeline.

The European Strategy for Particle Physics forms the cornerstone of Europe’s decision-making for the long-term future of our field. Initiated in 2006, it was first updated in 2013 to reflect the evolution of the field following the start-up of the LHC. Today, as we approach the LHC’s second long shutdown and prepare for the machine’s high-luminosity upgrade, it is time to take stock again.

In its first two iterations, the European Strategy put the emphasis firmly on the LHC, with global coordination in other areas of the field also taking prominence. Now, as we have a cornucopia of results from the LHC and other facilities to inform us, coupled with impressive progress from the CLIC and FCC study groups, as well as from the Physics Beyond Colliders study, there is a wealth of information for the community to digest. Plans and options for experiment programmes outside CERN will also be taken into consideration. All this will feed in to making well-informed choices about the future aspirations for particle physics in Europe as the LHC programme plays out and we start to look at what may lie beyond.

On the initiative of the President of the CERN Council and the Chair of the European Strategy Group, a new feature of the process this year is enhanced communication of the process, both to members of the particle physics community and to those beyond the community who follow our field. In line with the underlying ethos of the Strategy, this aims to ensure that the process is as inclusive as possible, giving a voice to the grass roots of the particle physics community. By the time the process is complete, and its recommendations presented to the Council in 2020, the future roadmap should be coming into clear focus.

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For more information, read CERN’s press release on the Strategy update.