A discussion on the future of particle physics is underway. When is it not, you might ask? And it is a good question, there is always something like this going on (hence the “part 94” in the title, which is a bit of a Private Eye in-joke). But this is a moment when the intensity of the discussion is rising.

This is because the European Strategy for Particle physics is being updated; this is a big deal globally because a key part of that strategy will concern the future of CERN, the world-leading particle physics laboratory which lies in the heart of Europe (well, on the Swiss-French border anyway) and which is funded and suported by 24 member states and counting. The process will not in itself approve any new projects, but it will set the direction of the field. Previous strategies have had a big impact.

CERN itself has developed a “Plan A”, which is for a new large tunnel which would house first an electron-positron collider and then a hadron-hadron collider. The “feasibility study” for this proposal was kicked off by the last European Strategy update which said:

“Europe, together with its international partners, should investigate the technical and financial feasibility of a future hadron collider at CERN with a centre-of-mass energy of at least 100 TeV and with an electron-positron Higgs and electroweak factory as a possible first stage. Such a feasibility study of the colliders and related infrastructure should be established as a global endeavour and be completed on the timescale of the next Strategy update”

That study is one of many submissions to the process which have now been released and are collected here. These include cases for specific projects, national statements, and summaries addressing cross-cutting technological, environmental and other issues. The deadline for the first round of submissions was 31 March, and some of the discussion has been surfacing in the media. See for example this article and editorial in Nature, this in the Guardian and this in the Times (paywalled), to pick a UK-based selection. Quotees include colleagues Halina Abramowicz, who chaired the last strategy update but now seems to regret its conclusions, Ruben Saakyan (also UCL) who was one of the coordinators of the UK submission, and me (I was UK delegate for the last two updates).

The submissions will be digested and discussed in an open meeting in Venice in June, and eventually a strategy document will be agreed. We hope. Looking forward lots of discussion, some of which might make it onto this blog I guess.

Given the wider political, economic and environmental situation, it may seem a bit strange to be discussing ambitious investment in particle physics, and indeed we have to be senstitive to the wider context. I’ll finish for now with what I said when Rhys Blakely from the Times raised that issue, as quoted in the article linked above:

“This is one of the very few high-tech areas of research where Europe has an undeniable world lead. And that has societal and economic benefits. Maybe we can’t afford to keep it. But we’re in competition […] do we really want to hand over that leadership?”