PRESIDENT’S REPORT

The President reported that, since the Council’s June Session, he had attended the 42^nd International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP) in Prague in July, visited Oslo at the invitation of the Norwegian delegation for Norway’s CERN70 celebration event and had hosted a meeting, together with the Director-General, with four former Directors-General of the Organization.

DIRECTOR-GENERAL’S REPORT

The Director-General reported on the following subjects:

Performance of the accelerators, experiments and computing in 2024
European Commission report on “The future of European competitiveness”
CERN’s 70th anniversary events
European Commission prize awarded to Arts at CERN
Accession of Estonia as a Member State

FCC FEASIBILITY STUDY STATUS REPORT

The Council heard a presentation by the FCC Feasibility Study Leader, Dr Benedikt, covering the FCC week held in San Francisco in June, the progress of the ongoing activities and studies across the various work packages, and the structure of the final Feasibility Study report to be issued in March 2025.

CERN PENSION FUND

The Council heard a report by the Chair of the Pension Fund Governing Board, Dr Buzatu, on the key issues discussed at the Board's meeting on 19 September 2024, including the Fund’s year-to-date investment performance of +3.27% as at 31 July, and its five-year annualised performance of +2.76%.

UPDATE OF THE EUROPEAN STRATEGY FOR PARTICLE PHYSICS: COMPOSITION AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PHYSICS PREPARATORY GROUP

The Council heard a presentation by the Strategy Secretary, Professor Jakobs, outlining the proposed composition and working methods of the Physics Preparatory Group (PPG) as well as the updated composition of the European Strategy Group (ESG) and decided:

to appoint the members of the PPG proposed by the Scientific Policy Committee and the European Committee for Future Accelerators, and
to approve the establishment of the PPG on the basis of the composition set out in the document presented.

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AGREEMENT WITH URUGUAY

The Council heard a presentation by the Director for International Relations, Ms Warakaulle, and approved the conclusion of an International Cooperation Agreement with the Oriental Republic of Uruguay.

REPORT ON NON-LHC EXPERIMENTS

The Council heard a presentation by the Director for Research and Computing, Professor Mnich, describing recent results from the NA62 and NA66 experiments and the Neutron Time-of-Flight (n_ToF) facility, the latest developments at the CERN Neutrino Platform, scientific institutes, workshops and other events organised by the CERN Theory department and the success of the recently reopened CERN Library.

HL-LHC MATTERS

The Council heard a presentation by Professor Mnich on the good progress of the Phase 2 upgrades of ATLAS and CMS, on the risks to the schedule of both upgrade projects and on the discussions between the CERN Management, the accelerator teams and the collaborations that had resulted in a consensus that the start of the High-Luminosity LHC (HL–LHC) should be delayed by one year, with Run 3 extended by six months to the end of June 2026 and Long Shutdown 3 (LS3) extended by a few months into 2030.

The Council then heard a presentation by the Director for Accelerators and Technology, Dr Lamont, on the progress of the HL-LHC project, describing recent achievements such as the validation of the Nb₃Sn magnet technology, the installation of equipment and infrastructure in the new surface and underground rooms, good results from the ongoing preparations for the testing of components in the SM18 hall and the start of industrial production of the crab cavities and the associated cryomodules. Dr Lamont further explained to the Council the rationale for the proposal, in agreement with the experiment collaborations, to delay by one year the start of the HL-LHC (Run 4).

LHC MATTERS

The Council heard a presentation by Dr Lamont on the status of the accelerator complex, describing the impressive performance of the complex in 2024, with an integrated luminosity of over 100 fb^-1 delivered to both ATLAS and CMS and a record of 1.5 fb^-1 achieved in a single day at the LHC, and the high availability of the complex throughout the year, with over 50% of the time in stable beams at the LHC.

Professor Mnich then gave a presentation outlining the CMS experiment’s precise new measurement of the W mass, the ATLAS experiment’s ongoing search for magnetic monopoles, the LHCb experiment’s new measurement of the gamma angle of the unitarity triangle, the ALICE experiment’s production of isolated photons in lead-lead collisions and the efficient operation of the CERN data centres and the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG).

The Council applauded the excellent performance of the accelerator complex, the impressive physics results of the experiments and the efficient operation of the CERN data centres and the WLCG.

CERN SCIENCE GATEWAY REPORT

The Council heard a presentation by the Head of the Science Gateway Operations group, Mr Geeraert, on the first year of operation of the CERN Science Gateway, covering the very positive media coverage; the number, country of origin and age range of visitors; the guides training programme; the positive feedback received on the exhibitions; the success of the bilingual science shows, laboratory workshops, guided tours and events; and details of income and expenditure.

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closed COUNCIL

ENLARGEMENT PROCESS

The Council took note of the conclusion by the fact-finding Task Force that Lithuania continues to fulfil the criteria and obligations of Associate Membership, and invited the Director-General to communicate the successful outcome of the review to the Lithuanian authorities.

GRANTING OF OBSERVER STATUS TO JAPAN IN RESPECT OF THE HIGH-LUMINOSITY LHC PROJECT

The Council adopted a Resolution granting Observer status to Japan in respect of the HL-LHC project.

ELECTIONS AND APPOINTMENTS

Next President of the Council

The Council elected Professor Costas Fountas (Greece) as President of the Council for a first term of office of one year, with effect from 1 January 2025.

SPC composition: recommendation from the SPC Membership Selection Committee

On the proposal of the SPC Membership Selection Committee. the Council appointed the following new members of the SPC, each for a four-year non-renewable term of office as of 1 January 2025:

Juan Alcaraz Maestre, CIEMAT
Barbara Erazmus, CNRS/SUBATECH
Angeles Faus-Golfe, IJCLab
Tim Gershon, Warwick
David Gross, KITP Santa Barbara
Peter Križan, Ljubljana
Hans Weise, DESY

Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics: selection of the venue for the Open Symposium (23-27 June 2025)

The Council selected the Palazzo del Casinò, Venice, Italy, as the venue for the Open Symposium in June 2025.

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CERN Accelerating science

News

PRESIDENT’S REPORT