On the 9th and 10th of July, the UK’s accelerator community gathered for the UK’s flagship annual event: the Particle Accelerator and Beams Conference 2025 (PAB 2025).
The hosts for this year’s event were Diamond Light Source, ISIS Neutron and Muon Source and the John Adams Institute, University of Oxford, who co-organised together with the Institute of Physics (IOP) Particle Accelerators and Beams Group. The conference took place at the University of Oxford’s Clarendon Laboratory, with tours of ISIS, Diamond, and CLF’s EPAC facility at RAL on the second day. The conference was a resounding success, with around 100 people attending the packed programme of talks and posters.
The conference also had a vibrant social programme, featuring a drinks reception and conference banquet at the Blavatnik School of Government, where the attendees were entertained by magician Chris Webb and Ukelele band ‘The Ukes of Hazard’.
A highlight of the event was the Prize for Outstanding Professional Contribution, awarded to Deepa Angal-Kalinin of ASTeC and the Cockcroft Institute for her world-leading expertise and highly productive and influential career as an accelerator physicist, especially in the fields of light sources and linear colliders. Deepa was recognised for her work in many areas: leading the European work on the beam delivery systems for the ILC; accelerator physics lead of the ALICE energy recovery linac; Science Division head at ASTeC; PhD studies on ‘Beam Dynamics in Spreaders for Future X-ray Free Electron Laser Facilities’; Head of CLARA since 2020 including successfully leading the project to 250 MeV; UK XFEL lead for accelerator collaboration with Eu-XFEL; plus advisory roles for many of the largest accelerator projects within Europe.
ISIS industrial placement student Patrycja Jane Broda won the poster prize for an excellent presentation of her work on automation of chopped beam measurement and analysis in the ISIS synchrotron.
Members of the CI made key contributions throughout the conference, including plenary talks from Andrea Santamaria Garcia and Rob Apsimon. CI’s director Stewart Boogert, ex-director Peter Ratoff and ASTeC’s Jim Clarke took part in an engaging panel discussion on the ‘Future funding of accelerator science and technology’, alongside other accelerator experts, Philip Burrows (University of Oxford and JAI), Richard D’Arcy (University of Oxford and JAI) and Nick Bazin (AWE).
CI had several contributed talks, from Aras Amini, Alexander Brynes, David Dunning, Ana Maria Guisao Betancur, Finlay Gunneberg, Ahmad Fahim Habib, Mark Johnson, Angus Jones, Farhana Thesni Mada Parambil, and Ryan McGuigan, and several other CI members presented in a lively poster session.