Cockcroft Institute :: Director's Corner

Director's Corner Swapan Chattopadhyay Director of The Cockcroft Institut

June 3 2008

Director's Letters of Welcome

To the participants of the Workshop on Advanced Photon Sources
(3-4 June)
and to those attending the CM21 MICE Collaboration Meeting (4-7 June).

May 6 2008

Chattopadhyay Musings on completion of a full year

On April 23, 2008 I completed my full year in the job officially. Thanks to the generosity of colleagues, friends and family on both sides of the Atlantic, and of those especially in the UK, I have grown personally to a significant measure in this transformational year. It has been a combination of inspiration and perspiration, pleasant surprises and unexpected shocks. This past year has been one of significant hardship, trials and tribulations for the entire UK physics and astronomy community. The hardship has been inflicted in the wake of the ambiguous merger of the two previously separate UK Research Councils, CCLRC and PPARC, into one new larger Research Council, the STFC, coinciding with my arrival to the UK last year. The hardship has been caused as a result of the science budget allocations following the Comprehensive Spend Review and the subsequent Delivery Plan prepared and offered by the new leadership team of STFC to the community. The Cockcroft Institute and scientists and engineers in the entire Daresbury site along with those at our partner institutions of the Universities of Liverpool, Manchester and Lancaster as well as sister institutions of John Adams Institute, Oxford University, University of Royal Holloway, Imperial College etc. have been no exception to this hardship. Our colleagues at Daresbury Laboratory have been particularly hard hit by the developments. But in the final analysis, thanks to the integrity of the UK scientists who are highly ranked in the global network of the much evolved and sophisticated scientific communities, to the tenacity of the academics and academic leaders in the universities and learned societies such as the Royal Society and the Institute of Physics, to the vigilance of the rank and file scientists especially at Daresbury and Rutherford Appleton Laboratories and last but not the least, most impressively to the effectiveness of concerned Members of Parliament in the House of Commons -- the UK scientific community is poised to rise higher and come out stronger from this ‘historically notable’ dark episode in science administration. As far as the Cockcroft Institute is concerned, we already stand taller visibly amongst our peers nationally in the UK as well as globally, having been noted by the UK government and the world as one of the driving forces for transformation and change nationally and globally. We owe this development no doubt to the significant strength and stature of Cockcroft Institute scientists and engineers as world class professionals. I remain convinced that we are on our way to even greater achievements to come.

I recount below a few disappointments, but also some remarkable achievements that our fellow institute members should be proud of in this past year – a trick my music teacher taught me years ago as an aid to boosting morale on the face of feelings of inadequacy that may creep in at particularly challenging times.

The decision on the 4 GLS initiative -- well on its way to its seventh year of maturity -- taken by the new STFC management has been a shocking blow to the entire community. This is a reflection more of the lack of information and ownership by the UK community-at-large including the UK Research Councils rather than its lack of novelty and substance which is acknowledged by the entire international community. I am personally reminded that the 4GLS was one of the many innovative progressive lines of development from the UK community that brought me here. All is not lost however. With the acknowledgement of the need for an operating facility at Daresbury combined with the established need for a next generation light source in the UK and involvement of local scientists and engineers in the Next Light Source project, many from the Cockcroft Institute and its affiliated institutions, we have an opportunity to really turn this into a major next project for the UK and the community. The challenge is to remain involved at the highest level of conception and design of the facility where we have a lot to contribute, having been steeped in the development for the last few years. We also have to be careful not to fall back on the past but secure the support of the entire UK community as we move forward.

The STFC decision on the ILC has been yet another disappointment, affecting many early career bright scientists at Cockcroft Institute and at our sister institutions like the John Adams Institute and collaborating universities and labs like Daresbury lab. We must take pride that the entire community has come together on this issue. With diligent and persistent collaboration between Cockcroft Institute, John Adams Institute, associated universities and the leadership of ILC GDE/Europe, there has been a recognized package combining global leadership and generic research, albeit of a significantly reduced scope, that will keep the activity alive. This is surely to grow in the coming years, not in the sense of any specific project per say, but in the sense that the basic need for lepton colliders and facilities remains at a fundamental level for years to come, complementing hadron facilities. In this context enhanced collaboration on CLIC developments and future super-luminous electron-positron rings and colliders will keep our core competency in the development of lepton facilities properly honed.

The vulnerability of the precious skills base at the Cockcroft Institute, subject to the threat of possible compulsory redundancies as a result of the STFC Delivery Plan, has been minimized. I am glad to say that as a result of dedicated hard work by the STFC/ASTeC leadership, backed by consistent support from the Cockcroft Institute in articulating to STFC, UKRC and DIUS its value for the entire UK workforce and skills retention, the redundancy exercise had minimal effects on our workforce and skills base. The challenge remains in maintaining the motivation of the next generation of scientists in boosting our field at this juncture in time. I call upon you all to join me in working with our early career colleagues in shaping our future our way.

On the positive side, there has been much welcome development in the area of large facilities development for particle physics. I am delighted to observe that the initiative started locally by physicists at Cockcroft Institute and Univ. of Liverpool on the Large Hadron electron Collider (LHeC) is now global and has been put on the CERN roadmap as a potential future possibility officially. Simultaneously, the Cockcroft Institute has strengthened its ties with CERN on collaborations on the LHC commissioning and its future upgrades, precision atomic physics research of anti-matter via collaboration on the Antiproton Decelerator and possible collaboration on the high intensity proton linac developments in the CERN SPL. Finally, there is significant promise of a substantial involvement in the conception, design, construction and operation of a high current heavy ion linac HIE-ISOLDE at CERN, serving the European nuclear physics community. All these activities will help us grow a much needed and critical core competency in proton, hadron and heavy ion accelerators to the benefit of UK. This will go a long way in securing a future Neutrino Factory or a Muon Collider or a possible high current neutron source facility in UK, where Cockcroft Institute and particularly its ASTeC centre has much to contribute in the facility conception and design.

On the frontier of institution building, we have made remarkable progress in the past year. The institute is now visible on the international scene, thanks to the high profile leadership roles of many of our colleagues in international and national projects (e.g. ILC, LHC, Super-B, NF/MC, NLS, etc.); in national and international professional societies (e.g. IoP, EPS, APS, ICFA, ECFA, ACFA, etc.); in major international conference organizations and program developments (e.g. PAC, EPAC, APAC merging to IPAC, LINAC, etc.). We have distinguished ourselves via international pioneering workshops on specialized emerging themes of our times, including the ERL 2007 and one even in the specialty niche area of Polarized Antiprotons that not many in the world can claim to have expertise in. Our Education and Training program has been exemplary as validated by a 5.0/5* (excellent rating) in the STFC quota studentship award national competition, having successfully secured an identifiable Cockcroft-specific STFC studentship award of six students in 2008-2009. The Education and Training program has been internationally visible, sought after by CERN and the US Particle Accelerator School for collaborative programs. Our publications continue to climb through your vigilance with a goal of 80 refereed publications per year at present (40 from academic faculty members per year and an additional 40 from our STFC/ASTeC colleagues and students and post doctoral researchers). We are now a proud sponsor, along with major laboratories like CERN, Fermilab, SLAC etc. of the prestigious international referred electronic journal tailored to our field namely, the PRST-AB. The institute has garnered many awards and honors this past year: Jim Clarke elected to the rank of Fellowship of the Institute of Physics, UK; Des Barber receiving the citation as an “Outstanding Reviewer” of the year from the Physical Review journal; our institute Distinguished Fellow, Prof. Gerald Gabrielse receiving the Tomassoni Prize from Italy; institute members asked to present ‘invited’ talks at major international conferences and workshops; international groups and laboratories such as CERN (Switzerland/France), SLAC (USA), JLab (USA), GSI/FAIR (Germany), Svedberg Laboratory (Sweden), Stefan Boltzman Institute (Austria), SUPA (Scotland), Imperial College (UK), Univ. of Swansea (UK), INO (India), TRIUMF (Canada), KEK (Japan), seeking collaboration with Cockcroft Institute. A successful recruitment campaign is ongoing for six academic positions at the three partner universities, to be filled by the end of summer, 2008. There has been considerable progress in the development of an institutional Business Plan, an Operations Model as well as spear-heading a Knowledge Exchange activity within the Cockcroft Institute. The Cockcroft Institute today is the home to the Accelerator Club of the RF Faraday partnership, hosted under the auspices of the prestigious Institute for Engineering and Technology (IET). The Cockcroft Institute has enjoyed significant support from its governing Board of stake holding institutions, particularly from the offices of the Vice Chancellors of the Universities of Liverpool, Manchester and Lancaster and most recently from the Office of Knowledge Exchange of STFC. The institute is poised in preparation of its mid-term review of the UKRC core grant supporting the institute, planned to take place early autumn of 2008.

A great year with so much still that I couldn’t touch upon and even a greater amount of future successes yet to come. Thank you all for your total support in this trying year. Onwards and upwards as we enter this next phase…..Cheers!!!!!