R-ECFA Meeting 11-12th May

ECFA stands for European Committee for Future Accelerators. The committee visits institutes in its member countries to assess the current status of accelerator physics and make suggestions on how things can be improved. I was invited to give a talk at a recent Restricted-ECFA meeting that was held at Imperial. They wanted to get an idea about what PhDs in particle physics are really like, so gave a talk about what I had done during my PhD, why I did one in the first place and what my future plans are. It was a lot of fun to stand up and give a talk that was all based on opinion (so I couldn’t technically get anything wrong!). I told them that I thought the atmosphere at CERN was great and that everyone who works there is really enthusiastic. I also said I thought the funding for PhD students was set a quite a reasonable level, sorry to anyone who thinks I should have used the opportunity to campaign for more cash. I had a few complaints, mainly about PPARC admin department (all PhD students have a story or two to back this up) and GSEPS (transferable skills courses) which are generally a waste of time. In the main I think I am lucky to be working in such an interesting and diverse field, especially at such an important time, so that’s what I told them.

Many people gave talks concerning the state of physics in schools, funding for research and general overviews of experiments and institutes. The committee returned a very positive verdict about the status of physics in the UK and made some constructive suggestions. They commented on the small proportion of women in the field but accepted that redressing this balance is a complicated, long term process.