The visit of the Japanse delegation to Bundestag on July 1.
On 1 and 2 July, a high-level delegation of the Japanese government led by Diet Members from the House of Representatives, the Honourable Takeo Kawamura, Ryu Shionoy and Shintaro Ito, with officials from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Hiroshi Mashiko and Wataru Todoroki, accompanied by the KEK Director-General, the President of Iwate Prefectural University, the Advanced Accelerator Association (AAA) and Iwate representatives, and researchers visited Germany and France to show the current status of the ILC project and convey the governmental will to go ahead with the evaluation process towards a final decision.
The discussions took place at parliamentary and ministry (BMBF for Germany and MESRI for France) levels, and highlighted that the ILC process in Japan is progressing steadily and is considered as a major investment in the future. This means that advantages are not only seen for particle physics but also for cultural aspects, international cooperation and the dynamics it will generate in industry and society at large. The formal decisions in Europe will be on-hold until the European Particle Physics Strategy Update process is completed (May 2020) and while the ILC is also evaluated in the context of the Science Council of Japan’s Master Plan, it was agreed to establish Japan-Germany and Japan-France discussion groups, similar to the already existing US/Department of Energy-Japan/MEXT one. The possibility to extend the two bilateral groups to a Japan-France-Germany tri-partite discussion group has been also addressed by the Parliament members. This visit moreover served as an opportunity to discuss the project in a wider science diplomacy context accommodating more general objectives of mutual interest.
The visit to Assemblee Nationale, MESRI and CEA Saclay on July 2.
Recent Comments