Salutations everybody! Today I’m taking a break from writing about LHCb and will instead discuss an event which occurred on the other side of the world; an event which actually has very little to do with USLHC but is nonetheless very important for the future of particle physics. Well, particle physics back home at least…
What am I talking about you ask? Yesterday was the official opening of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at the Terascale (CoEPP). The Centre is a collaborative research venture that brings experimental and theoretical physicists together from around the country to coordinate research regarding terascale particle physics with a concentration on ATLAS.
The Centre was opened by the Australian Innovation Minister, Senator Kim Carr, at the head office at the University of Melbourne. It was attended by physicists from a consortium collaborating institutes, the University of Adelaide, the University of Sydney, and Monash University. Coinciding with the official opening was a small workshop where all the principal investigators gave presentations laying out their plans.
Why all the excitement? According to the Australian Research Council, a Centre for Excellence is a prestigious hub of expertise … in research areas of national priority. The application process for such a Centre is a very long and drawn-out process, but well worth it if successful with the CoEPP having been awarded around $25 million over seven years.
Such a large injection of funding drives the rapidly changing state of Australian particle physics. For example, the ATLAS experimental particle physics research group at the University of Melbourne where I did my PhD now has five new postdocs and one new academic, while the theoretical particle physics research group has three new postdocs. There are interesting times ahead…
Tags: CoEPP
