53rd ICFA Meeting

ICFA MEETING

CERN

 

9/10 February 2006

1.         Introduction

            A meeting of ICFA was held at CERN on 9/10 February 2006.  In addition to ICFA members, also invited were ICFA Panel Chairs, the Chair of the Funding Agencies for a Linear Collider (FALC), and the directors of all of the world’s major particle physics laboratories.

2.         ILCSC

            The International Linear Collider Steering Committee (ILCSC) is setting up a Machine Advisory Committee (MAC) to monitor GDE accelerator activities, with F. Willeke (DESY) as its Chair

(see Machine_Advisory_Committee.pdf).

A revised mandate for ILCSC will be proposed to ICFA, as there have been changes in ILCSC’s activities (such as its current role as oversight of GDE) since it was formed three years ago.

3.         FALC

            There was a report by the Funding Agencies for a Linear Collider (FALC) and its subgroup FALC-Resource Group (FALC-RG).  To increase coordination, the FALC Chair will be invited to ICFA meetings, and the ICFA and ILCSC Chairs will be invited to FALC meetings; the ILCSC and FALC-RG Chairs will be invited to each other’s meetings.

            Following FALC actions, some common funds for GDE have been obtained; they were provided equally by the three world regions.

4.         Accelerator Conferences

            There are three major accelerator conference series (APAC, EPAC and PAC).  EPAC and PAC have alternating two-year cycles, while APAC has a three-year cycle, leading to two of the conferences taking place in some years.  Each conference is now ~40% international in attendance.

            ICFA endorsed the internationalization and coordination of the three conference series so that there is only one major international accelerator conference each year, with venue rotating around the world.  ICFA will urge the conference series organizers to achieve this goal.

5.         Reports

            There were reports on activities by three of ICFA’s Panels, by InterAction, and by 17 labs represented at the meeting.