ICFA MEETING
Philadelphia, USA
2 August 2008
1. Linear Collider
A discussion on recent linear collider activities included a report on the ILCSC meeting held at Dubna, Russia, on 2 June 2008. The Global Design Effort (GDE) has now produced an R&D plan for the technical design phases, which will continue until 2012, and the ILC detector program has been revised to be in synchronism with that of the accelerator. A site near to JINR, Dubna, has been proposed for the ILC; this will be a shallow site (~20 metres underground), in contrast to the deep sites which the GDE has studied up to now.
An ILCSC subgroup will study site selection procedures. A new GDE MOU has been produced for the technical design phases. A Project Advisory Committee has been set up by ILCSC to review ILC accelerator and detector activities, with its first meeting on 19/20 October 2008 at LPNHE, Paris.
2. ICFA Seminar
The ICFA Seminar is held every three years, and the 9th in the series will be at SLAC on 28-31 October 2008. These Seminars provide an opportunity for government science officials, lab directors, and leading particle and accelerator physicists to discuss the future directions of the particle physics field.
3. Open Access Publishing
In August 2007, ICFA issued a statement supporting open access publishing in particle physics. A progress report on particle physics open access publishing was given to the ICFA meeting, noting the hope that a Board for this program will be set up by the end of 2008.