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Japanese high-energy physics community accelerates ILC effort with new organisation

| 31 January 2021

On 28 October, Japan’s high-energy physics community took a big step. The Japan Association of High Energy Physicists (JAHEP) announced the establishment of a new organisation called the ILC Steering Panel. The panel’s mandate is to lead the community in the timely realisation of the ILC project by developing and executing ILC promotion strategies in cooperation with other scientific communities, governmental authorities, legislators, corporate leaders, regional governments, and media, as well as international communities and authorities.

“I believe it is very important to build a good research environment where scientists, especially the younger generation, are able to work on the research challenges together,” said Satoru Yamashita of University of Tokyo, who chairs the new panel. “By spreading the news and sharing the information about the research that can be done at the ILC, we plan to grow support and momentum for this global project.”

The panel has wasted no time getting to work. Their first goal has been to acquaint the research community with ILC’s rich physics programme. They have begun setting up round-table discussions at universities in Japan, talking over possible research themes and strengthening communication toward future joint research. This effort has already begun with round-table sessions at Hiroshima University and Kyushu University in December 2020 and at the Nagoya University last week.

“Both sessions got really lively, and most of the participants enjoyed the sessions and wished to continue the discussion,” said Masao Kuriki of Hiroshima University, who leads this effort. “If there were interesting research topics, the discussions kept going, without prompting. We need to keep up the momentum, so we plan to provide topics and information for further discussion.”

The panel plans to have those sessions once or twice a month over the next six months.

The ILC Steering Panel is also working to communicate to the world the activities of both the ILC project and the proposed site of the collider, since the ILC is a large-scale project for which global cooperation is essential.

“There are many activities in Japan surrounding the ILC project in various sectors, such as politics, industry, business, academia, and those specific to the candidate site. Those activities should be made to be known widely to the world,” Yamashita said.

For this purpose, the panel has just published the report “Recent Progress Towards the Realization of the ILC in Japan: Cooperative Efforts by Academia, Industry, and Local Region.”

The report summarises the latest status of efforts towards the realisation of the ILC, including the political activities, the key players in gathering ILC support, the promotional activities in the candidate construction site and topics of international discussions.

Panel members encourage all to share the report with research communities around the world as useful input for important discussions about this crucial future collider.

The ILC project status will also be updated on the panel website.

Full text of the report (English)

Full text of the report (Japanese)

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