Federal Physics Advisory Panel recommends groundbreaking strategies for U.S. investment in particle physics research
January 4, 2024 - Dani Rae Wascher
Scientists from across the country and key international partners making up the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) have recently sent their recommendations to U.S. funding agencies for what research projects in particle physics should be pursued in the next decade. On Dec. 8, 2023, the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP), a permanent advisory committee to the United States Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), approved this P5 report.
Roughly every 10 years, funding agencies, including the DOE and the NSF, convene a panel to decide what priorities to fund and focus on for the next decade. It was a year-long process that first gathered information from the scientific community and then decided which particle physics projects to recommend to HEPAP.
The P5 report consisted of a panel of about 30 scientists worldwide, including University of New Mexico Assistant Professor Francis-Yan Cyr-Racine.
“This was a difficult exercise. We had to make hard choices. We took all this input from the community and hopefully processed it into a coherent report. It was a time-consuming process, and it took a lot of work to make sure that we convey the right message,” explained Cyr-Racine.
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