# The ECFA Early Career Researcher’s Panel:
composition, structure, and activities, 2021 – 2022

Andrei Alexandru Geanta  Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and
Nuclear Engineering, Bucharest-Magurele; Romania  Chiara Amendola  IRFU, CEA,
Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette; France  Liliana Apolinario
Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas - LIP,
Lisboa; Portugal  Jan-Hendrik Arling  Editor  Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron
DESY, Hamburg; Germany  Adi Ashkenazi  Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of
Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv; Israel  Kamil Augsten
Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, Czech Technical
University in Prague, Prague; Czech Republic  Emanuele Bagnaschi  Editor
CERN, Geneva; Switzerland  Evelin Bakos  Institute of Physics, University of
Belgrade, Belgrade; Serbia  Liron Barak  Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of
Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv; Israel  Diogo Bastos
Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas - LIP,
Lisboa; Portugal  Giovanni Benato  INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso,
L’Aquila; Italy  Bugra Bilin  CERN, Geneva; Switzerland  Neven Blaskovic
Kraljevic  MAX IV Laboratory, Lund University, Lund; Sweden  Lydia Brenner
Nikhef National Institute for Subatomic Physics and University of Amsterdam,
Amsterdam; Netherlands  Francesco Brizioli  INFN Sezione di Perugia, Perugia;
Italy  Antoine Camper  Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Oslo; Norway
Alessandra Camplani  Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen,
Copenhagen; Denmark  Xabier Cid Vidal  Editor  Instituto Galego de Física de
Altas Enerxías (IGFAE), Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de
Compostela; Spain  Hüseyin Dag  Department of Physics, Bursa Technical
University, Bursa; Turkey  Flavia de Almeida Dias  Nikhef National Institute
for Subatomic Physics and University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam; Netherlands
Jordy Degens  Nikhef National Institute for Subatomic Physics and University
of Amsterdam, Amsterdam; Netherlands  Eleonora Diociaiuti  INFN e Laboratori
Nazionali di Frascati, Frascati; Italy  Laurent Dufour  CERN, Geneva;
Switzerland  Katherine Dunne  Editor  Department of Physics, Stockholm
University, Stockholm; Sweden  Filip Erhardt  Physics department, Faculty of
science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb; Croatia  Stefan-Alexandru Ghinescu
Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering,
Bucharest-Magurele; Romania  Loukas Gouskos  CERN, Geneva; Switzerland  Andrej
Herzan  Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava; Slovakia  Viktoria Hinger
Editor  Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen; Switzerland  Bojan Hiti  Department
of Experimental Particle Physics, Jožef Stefan Institute and Department of
Physics, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana; Slovenia  Armin Ilg  Editor
Physik-Institut, University of Zürich, Zürich; Switzerland  Adrián Irles
IFIC, Universitat de València and CSIC, València; Spain  Kateřina Jarkovská
Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Prague; Czech Republic
Jelena Jovicevic  Institute of Physics, University of Belgrade, Belgrade;
Serbia  Lucia Keszeghova  Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics,
Comenius University, Bratislava; Slovakia  Henning Kirschenmann  Editor
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki; Finland  Suzanne
Klaver  Nikhef National Institute for Subatomic Physics and VU University
Amsterdam, Amsterdam; Netherlands  Sotiroulla Konstantinou  University of
Cyprus, Nicosia; Cyprus  Magdalena Kuich  University of Warsaw, Warsaw; Poland
Neelam Kumari  CPPM, Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS/IN2P3, Marseille; France
Katarína Křížková Gajdošová  Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical
Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague; Czech Republic
Aleksandra Lelek  Universiteit Antwerpen, Antwerpen; Belgium  Jeanette Lorenz
Ludwig-Maxilimilians-University Munich & Fraunhofer Institute for Cognitive
Systems IKS, Munich; Germany  Ana Luisa Carvalho  Laboratório de
Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas - LIP, Lisboa; Portugal
Péter Major  MTA-ELTE Lendület CMS Particle and Nuclear Physics Group, Eötvös
Loránd University, Budapest; Hungary  Jakub Malczewski  Henryk Niewodniczanski
Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences, Kraków; Poland  Giada
Mancini  INFN e Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Frascati; Italy  Laura
Martikainen  Helsinki Institute of Physics, Helsinki; Finland  Émilie Maurice
Laboratoire Leprince-Ringuet, CNRS/IN2P3, Ecole Polytechnique, Institut
Polytechnique de Paris, Palaiseau; France  Seán Mee  Institute for Physics,
University of Graz, Graz; Austria  Vukasin Milosevic  Institute of High Energy
Physics, Beijing; China  Zuzana Moravcova  Niels Bohr Institute, University of
Copenhagen, Copenhagen; Denmark  Laura Moreno Valero  Institut für
Theoretische Physik, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Münster;
Germany  Louis Moureaux  Universität Hamburg, Hamburg; Germany  Heikki
Mäntysaari  Department of Physics, University of Jyväskylä and Helsinki
Institute of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki; Finland  Nikiforos
Nikiforou  CERN, Geneva; Switzerland  Younes Otarid  Deutsches Elektronen-
Synchrotron DESY, Hamburg; Germany  Michael Pitt  Department of Physics, Ben-
Gurion University, Beer-Sheva; Israel  Vlad-Mihai Placinta  Horia Hulubei
National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Bucharest-Magurele;
Romania  Géraldine Räuber  Institute of High Energy Physics, Austrian Academy
of Sciences, Vienna; Austria  Giulia Ripellino  Department of Physics, Royal
Institute of Technology, Stockholm; Sweden  Bryn Roberts  Department of
Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry; United Kingdom  Luka Šantelj  Jožef
Stefan Institute, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana; Slovenia  Steven Schramm
Editor  Département de Physique Nucléaire et Corpusculaire, Université de
Genève, Genève; Switzerland  Mariana Shopova  Institute for Nuclear Research
and Nuclear Energy, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia; Bulgaria  Kirill
Skovpen  Ghent University, Ghent; Belgium  Aleks Smolkovič  Jožef Stefan
Institute, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana; Slovenia  Gamze Sokmen  Middle
East Technical University, Physics Department, Ankara; Turkey  Paweł Sznajder
Editor  National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCBJ), Warsaw; Poland  Lourdes
Urda Gomez  Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas Medioambientales y
Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid; Spain  Abigail Victoria Waldron  Blackett
Laboratory, Imperial College London, London; United Kingdom  Sarah Williams
Editor  Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge; United
Kingdom  Valentina Zaccolo  Editor  University of Trieste and INFN, Trieste;
Italy  Nima Zardoshti  CERN, Geneva; Switzerland  Manuel Zeyen  Institute for
Particle Physics and Astrophysics, ETH Zürich, Zürich; Switzerland

##  1 Executive Summary

The Early Career Researcher’s (ECR) panel of the European Committee for Future
Accelerators (ECFA) [1] formed in January 2021, following the recommendations
of an initial ECR debate in November 2019 [2], which aimed to provide ECR
input to the 2020 update to the European Strategy for Particle Physics.

The ECR panel includes representatives from each ECFA member entity. It is
mandated to discuss all aspects that contribute in a broad sense to the future
of the research field of particle physics, with an emphasis on topics of
particular relevance to the ECR community. Following the endorsement of the
initial members of the panel in November 2020, the first meetings focused on
the establishment of a working structure. The decided-upon structure involves
an organisation committee, responsible for organising and chairing meetings as
well as handling outside correspondence, and working groups within the panel,
which address or discuss particular topics in more detail. A delegation of
five members was selected from within the panel as observers to Plenary ECFA
(PECFA) meetings, and one of those members was endorsed as an observer to
Restricted ECFA (RECFA) meetings.

This report aims to document the activities and achievements of the ECR panel
during its first two years. It is structured as follows: Section 2 introduces
the initial membership of the panel and describes the procedures for selecting
the organisation committee and PECFA/RECFA delegates. Overviews of the
activities of the working groups are provided in Section 3, while Section 4
summarises interactions between the ECR panel and the broader community in a
variety of contexts. Finally, Section 5 provides an outlook for the panel.

##  2 Panel Structure

###  2.1 ECR Panel Membership

The ECR panel, as of December 2022, consists of 75 members representing 28
distinct entities: 27 ECFA member countries, plus CERN. Each represented
entity is allowed to have up to three members on the panel; countries hosting
a major laboratory, as defined by being represented in the Lab Director’s
Group (LDG), are allowed a fourth representative, so long as at least one of
the four representatives is from the laboratory in question.

Panel members are selected by the national RECFA representatives, or the CERN
RECFA representative, as appropriate. The selected members are then proposed
to PECFA for endorsement: members endorsed by PECFA in November each year
begin their term on January 1 of the following year, while members endorsed by
PECFA in July each year begin their term on a back-dated date of July 1 of the
same year. The countries and laboratories represented in the ECFA ECR panel,
and their representatives as of December 2022, are listed in Table 1. An up-
to-date list of members is maintained on the ECR panel section of the ECFA
website [1].

Country/Lab | ECR panel members | Position and speciality
---|---|---
CERN | Emanuele Bagnaschi | fellow, theory
Nima Zardoshti | staff, ALICE
Laurent Dufour | LD research physics position, LHCb
Austria | Viktoria Hinger | PhD student becoming postdoc, CMS detector R&D
Géraldine Räuber | PhD student, HEPHY Vienna, Belle-II
Seán Mee | PhD student, pheno. of strongly interacting dark matter
Belgium | Aleksandra Lelek | postdoc, phenomenology
Louis Moureaux | postdoc, CMS
Kirill Skovpen | postdoc, CMS
Bulgaria | Mariana Shopova | postdoc, CMS
Croatia | Filip Erhardt | postdoc, ALICE
Cyprus | Sotiroulla Konstantinou | PhD student, CMS
Nikiforos Nikiforou | postdoc, ATLAS
Czech Republic | Kamil Augsten | assistant professor, ATLAS and COMPASS
Katarína Gajdošová Křížková | postdoc, ALICE
Kateřina Jarkovská | PhD student, theory
Denmark | Alessandra Camplani | assistant professor, ATLAS
Zuzana Moravcova | PhD student, ALICE
Finland | Henning Kirschenmann | senior scientist, CMS
Heikki Mäntysaari | senior research fellow, HI theory
Laura Martikainen | PhD student, CMS
France | Chiara Amendola | postdoc, CMS
Neelam Kumari | PhD student, ATLAS
Émilie Maurice | assistant professor, LHCb
Germany | Jeanette Lorenz | senior scientist, data science and quantum computing
Laura Moreno Valero | PhD student, theory
Jan-Hendrik Arling | postdoc, ATLAS
Younes Otarid | PhD student, CMS
Greece | Loukas Gouskos | postdoc, CMS
Hungary | Péter Major | PhD student, CMS
Israel | Adi Ashkenazi | postdoc, MicroBooNE and DUNE
Liron Barak | senior lecturer, ATLAS and SENSEI
Michael Pitt | postdoc, Forward physics at LHC and EIC
Italy | Francesco Brizioli | postdoc, NA62
Valentina Zaccolo | assistant professor, ALICE
Giovanni Benato | research fellow, experimental neutrino physics
Eleonora Diociaiuti | postdoc, Mu2e
Giada Mancini | postdoc, ATLAS
Netherlands | Jordy Degens | PhD student, ATLAS
Flavia de Almeida Dias | assistant professor, ATLAS
Suzanne Klaver | postdoc, LHCb
Lydia Brenner | ATLAS staff, Nikhef
Norway | Antoine Camper | temporary researcher, AEgIS
Poland | Magdalena Kuich | assistant professor, NA61/SHINE
Jakub Malczewski | PhD student, LHCb
Paweł Sznajder | assistant professor, theory
Portugal | Liliana Apolinario | assistant researcher, phenomenology
Diogo Bastos | PhD student, CMS
Ana Luisa Carvalho | PhD student, ATLAS
Romania | Andrei Geanta | postdoc, ATLAS
Stefan-Alexandru Ghinescu | PhD student, NA62
Vlad-Mihai Placinta | postdoc/electronics engineer, LHCb
Serbia | Evelin Bakos | PhD student, ATLAS
Jelena Jovicevic | research professor, ATLAS
Vukasin Milosevic | postdoc, CMS
Slovakia | Andrej Herzan | postdoc, ISOLDE
Lucia Keszeghova | PhD student, ATLAS
Slovenia | Bojan Hiti | postdoc, ATLAS
Aleks Smolkovič | PhD student, theory
Luka Šantelj | postdoc, BELLE II
Spain | Xabier Cid Vidal | postdoc, LHCb/CODEX-b
Adrián Irles | postdoc, ATLAS, CALICE and ILC
Lourdes Urda Gomez | PhD student, CMS
Sweden | Katherine Dunne | PhD student, ATLAS
Neven Blaskovic Kraljevic | postdoc, accelerators
Giulia Ripellino | PhD student, ATLAS
Switzerland | Armin Ilg | postdoc, FCC
Steven Schramm | assistant professor, ATLAS
Manuel Zeyen | PhD student, low energy precision physics
Turkey | Bugra Bilin | senior research fellow, CMS
Hüseyin Dag | postdoc, CMS
Gamze Sokmen | PhD student, CMS
UK | Bryn Roberts | PhD student, ATLAS
Abbey Waldron | postdoc, DUNE
Sarah Williams | postdoc, ATLAS
Table 1: The full list of ECFA ECR panel members, as of December 2022.

When the original set of panel members was endorsed by PECFA in November 2020
[3], the number of allocated members followed a slightly different set of
rules: DESY (Germany) and Frascati (Italy) were originally considered to be
separate entities and thus were also allocated up to three members each,
rather than only granting one additional representative for the host country.
It was decided in the November 2021 PECFA meeting [4] that ECR panel members
originally appointed via this system would remain part of the panel for the
duration of their mandate, and the rule would be enforced only on incoming
panel representatives. This is the reason that Italy currently has five
representatives, as two are from Frascati; the number of representatives for
Germany has already been resolved due to a panel member ending their
involvement.

The official mandate of the ECR panel members was defined and approved by
PECFA [5]. This mandate defines the interactions between the panel and the
parent ECFA group, including the allocation of five PECFA observers, one of
which is a RECFA observer; these will be discussed further in Section 2.2. The
mandate also notes that the panel meets infrequently; rather the overall
activities are coordinated by an organisation committee discussed in Section
2.3, and day-by-day activities proceed in topical working groups, as detailed
in Section 3. Beyond defining a structure of the ECR panel, the mandate also
defines the eligibility criteria for membership in the ECR panel and stresses
that “members act as individuals, but should be able to represent the views of
early-career researchers in particle physics in the country from which they
were nominated.”

The mandate serves as a solid foundation for the panel activities, but it is
intentionally concise in order to leave the panel space to self-organise. The
panel members have therefore agreed upon a few further points in order to
facilitate the activities of the ECR panel. In particular, the panel has
decided that quorum for any election, endorsement, or otherwise important
choice requires at least 50% of the panel members to have replied to the poll
or other associated means of decision-making. Additionally, the members have
decided to hold at least three meetings of the panel each year: one in
January, to set the priorities for the year; one in June, to prepare for the
July PECFA meeting; and one in September, to prepare for the November PECFA
meeting. There is the option to have an additional fourth meeting in October
in case the September meeting is insufficient; this fourth panel meeting was
not deemed necessary in either 2021 or 2022.

While it is understood that not all panel members will be able to join any
given meeting, the expectation is that all panel members will make a concerted
effort to participate in the three/four panel meetings that take place each
year. The large time gap between panel meetings means that individual
commitments often vary from one meeting to the next, which would support
increased attendance over the course of the year, but this is not always the
case: sometimes external commitments, such as coordination roles, necessitate
attending recurring meetings on a long-term basis. In order to reduce the
chance of the same people having to routinely miss panel meetings due to such
recurring external constraints, the day of the week on which the previous
meeting was held is excluded from consideration when identifying the time of
the next meeting. This methodology has been applied in every instance since
the spring of 2021, but it also has its own limitations: it may exclude the
day that would work for the largest number of panel members. This strategy is
therefore noted for future reference as to why meetings have been organised
this way to date, without implying that it is an optimal approach.

###  2.2 ECR Observers to Plenary and Restricted ECFA

According to the ECFA ECR panel mandate [5]: “ _From among the ECFA ECR Panel
members, a delegation of up to five members is assigned by the panel as
observers to Plenary ECFA meetings, and one member is assigned by the panel as
observer to Restricted ECFA meetings_ ”. The following section presents the
roles of Plenary and Restricted ECFA committees, responsibilities of
observers, and the way how they were selected.

PECFA is to discuss and decide on all ECFA activities, including evaluating
reports delivered by working groups, issuing recommendations to outside
organisations, endorsing new country/laboratory representatives, and
appointing the ECFA Chair and Secretary. PECFA consists of approximately 100
members (for the full list see Ref. [6]), who typically meet two times per
year. Each of these meetings consists of two parts: the first is closed and is
used for discussions of topics relevant to ECFA functioning, while the second
is open and focuses on informing the high energy physics community about
recent activities carried out by ECFA.

RECFA consists of a single representative from each member country/lab in ECFA
(for the full list see Ref. [7]). This community serves as an advisory board
to help the ECFA Chair and Secretary in shaping the programme of ECFA
activities. RECFA members also serve as the main point of contact with their
respective local high energy physics communities and authorities. RECFA meets
a few times per year, including for country visits.

The role and responsibilities of the ECR observers to PECFA and RECFA are as
follows. The observers take an active part in PECFA and RECFA meetings,
representing the broad point of view of the ECR community. They are also
responsible for informing PECFA about activities carried out by the ECR panel.
In addition, they hold occasional meetings with the ECFA Chair and Secretary,
with a purpose of discussing current developments and stimulating the work of
the ECR panel. The observers are also responsible for informing the ECR panel
about ECFA activities, in particular those that require the direct involvement
of the ECR panel or those that should be considered important by ECRs.

The current list of observers is summarised in Table 2. The observers were
chosen by a panel-defined selection committee, established _ad hoc_ among a
set of self-nominated candidates. The selection committee was given guidance
by the panel on which criteria to use for the selection: there should be no
more than one observer from any given country/laboratory, the observers should
be gender-balanced and career-balanced (taking into account both job security
and research experience), and the observers should represent a diverse set of
research backgrounds. The selection committee therefore ensured that the
observers came from different views and backgrounds and thus could represent
the many facets of the ECR high energy physics community.

Name | Country/Lab | Role
---|---|---
Eleonora Diociaiuti | Italy | PECFA Observer
Gianluca Inguglia | Austria | PECFA Observer
Henning Kirschenmann | Finland | PECFA Observer
Lydia Brenner | Netherlands | PECFA/RECFA Observer
Paweł Sznajder | Poland | PECFA Observer
Table 2: The list of observers to the Plenary and Restricted ECFA groups.

###  2.3 ECR Organisation Committee

The ECFA ECR Panel Organisation Committee (OC) is tasked with coordinating the
activities of the ECFA ECR panel. As of December 2022, there are five OC
members, listed in Table 3.

Name | Country/Lab
---|---
Jan-Hendrik Arling | Germany/DESY
Sarah Williams | UK
Steven Schramm | Switzerland
Valentina Zaccolo | Italy
Xabier Cid Vidal | Spain
Table 3: The list of members of the ECFA ECR Panel Organisation Committee.

Following a vote of the panel in April 2021, the OC should preferentially
consist of between 5 to 9 members, and it was decided that there is no
conflict of interest with, nor requirement for, PECFA/RECFA delegates: they
are eligible to be on the OC if they are interested, but there does not have
to be a PECFA/RECFA representative on the OC. The same vote also specified the
following responsibilities for the OC:

  * •

Organisation of the meetings of the ECR panel – preparing the agenda,
soliciting contributions to the agenda, liaising with speakers, liaising with
the PECFA/RECFA representatives to check for updates/news, chairing the
meetings, taking minutes of the meetings, and handling other meeting-
organisation-related duties;

  * •

Handling communication with the outside world – be listed on the publicly
contactable ECFA ECR list (ecfa-ecr-organisers@cern.ch), handle any emails
received from external parties, draft and solicit feedback on official emails
to be sent on behalf of the panel when making public statements, and help
maintain the public-facing website;

  * •

Arrange for public talk allocation – act as a “speaker’s committee” type body,
which allocates talks in case the panel is contacted asking for someone to
present on a given topic;

  * •

Coordinate the writing of panel reports – this includes contributions to the
bi-annual ECFA newsletters, as well as annual reports, such as this one.

All of the above-mentioned responsibilities have been carried out by the OC
members, at least once, since the formation of the OC.

##  3 Panel Working Groups

The day-by-day activities of the ECR panel proceed within working groups. As
working groups are intended to represent the current interests and priorities
of the ECR panel, which will naturally evolve with time, the list of active
working groups is dynamic. It is expected that some of the existing working
groups may cease activities in the year(s) ahead, while other new working
groups may be created.

###  3.1 Detector R&D

In the spring of 2021, the ECFA Detector R&D Roadmap effort [8] organised a
series of symposia on different topics. One of the symposia, on “Training in
Instrumentation”, invited a representative from the ECR panel to present the
ECR viewpoint [9]. The panel formed an ECR Detector R&D working group in March
2021, which subsequently solicited a broad range of input from the wider ECR
community in preparation for this presentation. The group organised a town
hall meeting to gather immediate feedback and learn which questions were of
relevance to the community, and then designed and circulated a survey to
students, early career faculty, engineers, and those working in industry with
a HEP background. The results of this survey were presented at the symposium
and received very positive feedback. Following the symposium, the analysed
results of the survey were published [10] in a document endorsed by the ECR
panel; this document was also provided as an input to the ECFA Detector R&D
Roadmap process.

The composition of the working group is shown in Table 4. The following
sections describe the output of the ECR Detector R&D working group.

Name | Country/Lab
---|---
Jan-Hendrik Arling | Germany/DESY
Liron Barak | Israel
Katherine Dunne | Sweden
Armin Ilg | Switzerland
Adrian Irles | Spain
Magdalena Kuich | Poland
Steven Schramm | Switzerland
Mariana Shopova | Bulgaria
Sarah Williams | UK
Table 4: The list of members of the Detector R&D working group.

####  3.1.1 Town Hall Event

The working group organized a town hall discussion [11] and invited early
career researchers in instrumentation, engineers, and technical staff to give
feedback on the topics most important for them in terms of their professional
development, satisfaction in their current roles, and their view of the future
of their career prospects. The ideas and feedback collected in this town hall
were used to design the following survey.

####  3.1.2 Survey

A survey about training in instrumentation was developed by the working group.
The survey was circulated among email lists of LHC experiments, national
early-career researcher lists, and detector R&D collaboration lists. The
advertisement mail explicitly stressed that the survey was targeted at all
ECRs, including those who had not yet been involved in instrumentation work,
in order to identify barriers preventing ECR involvement in instrumentation.
Engineers were also explicitly encouraged to participate. Overall, a total of
473 responses were recorded.

####  3.1.3 Report on Training in Instrumentation

The analysed results of the survey and the town hall discussion were presented
at the ECFA Detector R&D Roadmap Symposium of Task Force 9 on Training [9],
and a detailed report was published on arXiv and uploaded on CDS [12]. The
most important concerns raised were the lack of appropriate instrumentation
training or access thereto, issues of diversity and inclusion such as
“unconscious bias”, unsatisfactory recognition of instrumentation work and
training, and insufficient networking opportunities between different
experiments for ECRs in instrumentation. An overview of the report was later
presented and discussed with the instrumentation community at the 15th Pisa
Meeting on Advanced Detectors [13].

Following up on the lack of networking opportunities in instrumentation, the
Networking in Instrumentation WG was created.

###  3.2 Networking in Instrumentation

The Early Career Instrumentation Forum (ECIF) is a newly created series of
events for ECRs working on or interested in instrumentation. The goal of the
ECIF is to foster the interaction of young researchers in instrumentation and
to provide access to the experience of senior researchers involved in
instrumentation. The composition of the WG is shown in Table 5.

Name | Country/Lab
---|---
Jan-Hendrik Arling | Germany/DESY
Liron Barak | Israel
Eleonora Diociaiuti | Italy/Frascati
Katherine Dunne* | Sweden
Armin Ilg* | Switzerland
Adrian Irles | Spain
Magdalena Kuich | Poland
Giada Mancini | Italy/Frascati
Younes Otarid* | Germany/DESY
Mariana Shopova | Bulgaria
Sarah Williams* | UK
Table 5: Composition of the Early Career Instrumentation Forum WG. A * is used
to indicate members who were hosts of the panel discussion.

A first event was planned in 2022 and held on October 26: The Early-Career
Instrumentation Forum: Panel discussion and networking event [14]. From the
survey presented in Section 3.1, it was clear that career development is an
important topic for ECRs in instrumentation, which is why “Careers in
Instrumentation” was selected as the topic for the first ECIF event.

The WG invited senior researchers in instrumentation at different career
stages in academia and industry for a panel discussion. After this, the WG
collected, polished, and grouped questions to establish the general flow of
the discussion. These questions were taken both from the WG members and from
registered participants, who were able to submit questions before the event.

The panel discussion took place on Zoom and was moderated by the hosts.
Participants could ask live questions via another moderator. After the panel
discussion, the participants had the opportunity to directly discuss with the
three panelists in breakout rooms, allowing them to gain more insight on the
panelists’ career paths.

The first ECIF event had 99 registrations, around 45 of whom actually
connected and participated. A recording is available on the event page [14].
Future iterations of the ECIF could, for example, target specific
instrumentation technologies or other topics relevant for ECRs such as
training and networking in instrumentation.

###  3.3 Career Prospects and Diversity in Physics Programme Joint Survey

In the start of 2022, two working groups were formed to tackle questions of
career prospects of ECRs and the diversity of the physics programme.
Independently, both WGs set out to create a survey to be distributed to the
ECR community to better understand their needs and what the ECFA ECR panel
could do to promote these issues. After first initial drafts of the respective
survey questions, the WGs decided to merge the two surveys, as their scope was
rather similar. The composition of the two working groups who jointly
organised the ECR survey is shown in Table 6.

Name | Country/Lab
---|---
Kamil Augsten | Czech Republic
Giovanni Benato | Italy
Neven Blaskovic Kraljevic | Sweden
Francesco Brizioli | Italy
Eleonora Diociaiuti | Italy/Frascati
Viktoria Hinger | Austria
Armin Ilg | Switzerland
Kateřina Jarkovská | Czech Republic
Katarína Křížková Gajdošová | Czech Republic
Magdalena Kuich | Poland
Aleksandra Lelek | Belgium
Louis Moureaux | Belgium
Giulia Ripellino | Sweden
Steven Schramm | Switzerland
Mariana Shopova | Bulgaria
Pawel Sznajder | Poland
Abbey Waldron | UK
Table 6: Composition of the Career Prospects and Diversity in Physics working
groups.

####  3.3.1 Structure of Survey

The survey first gathers information about the personal data of the
participants and about their current position, affiliation, and duration of
contract. The participants are furthermore asked whether they identify as
under-represented. Next, the questionnaire collects information about the
field of research and affiliations with research groups or collaborations. The
subsequent part contains questions on the diversity of the physics program and
whether working in different types of environments affects the careers of
ECRs. The penultimate section addresses career perspective and planning as
well as work-life balance. The survey finishes with questions on recognition
and visibility, and open questions, such as what the ECFA ECR panel could
provide in order to support the development of the careers of ECRs.

A reduced set of questions was circulated amongst the ECFA national contacts
with the aim to enable a comparison between the early-career and senior
researchers opinions on key aspects of the survey.

####  3.3.2 Circulation and Preliminary Results

The ECR survey was distributed among larger experiments, national mailing
lists (via the ECFA national contacts and/or ECR panel members), and other ECR
mailing lists. A total of 684 responses were collected, while the reduced set
of questions for the ECFA national contacts was filled by 26 people. The
analysis of the surveys is currently ongoing, and a summary of the results is
planned to be released, similar to what was done for the training in
instrumentation survey and report (Section 3.1.2). The results will help steer
the future efforts of the ECFA ECR panel.

###  3.4 Electron-Ion Colliders

The Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) will be the next major investment in, and
facility for, particle physics in the USA. The physics programme of this new
QCD laboratory includes, but is not limited to, studies of hadronic structures
and dynamics between partons, which give rise to phenomena such as gluon
saturation. The EIC will be built in Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). The
construction of the facility is planned to begin in 2024; first data-taking is
expected in 2032. More information on the physics case, collider, and detector
designs can be found in Ref. [15].

The ECR EIC working group was created within the ECFA ECR panel in order to
raise awareness of the new project and to strengthen the links connecting the
nuclear and high energy physics communities, particularly at the level of
collaboration between ECRs. Some of the members of this working group have
joined the JENAA-organised “Synergies between the EIC and the LHC” event [16]
and took an active role in the kick-off meeting related to this
interdisciplinary effort [17]. Other activities of the group include a
presentation of the EIC project to the ECFA ECR panel and the establishment of
communication channels between this panel and the EIC ECR structures. The
current composition of the group is shown in Table 7.

Name | Country/Lab
---|---
Kamil Augsten | Czech Republic
Bugra Bilin | Turkey
Heikki Mäntysaari | Finland
Michael Pitt | Israel
Gamze Sokmen | Turkey
Paweł Sznajder | Poland
Valentina Zaccolo | Italy
Table 7: Composition of the EIC working group.

##  4 Summary of Community Interactions

During the two years of its existence, the ECFA ECR panel has interacted with
the larger high energy physics community in several different contexts. These
interactions are fundamental to the success of the panel, as it is intended to
represent the ECR community. The panel must therefore understand the
priorities of the ECR community, and convey these priorities to other groups.
The following is a summary of the interactions that have taken place between
the panel and other groups, sorted chronologically. Some of these interactions
have been mentioned earlier in the report, but are nonetheless repeated here,
such that this section represents a full summary of the panel’s involvement
with the larger community.

The panel was officially formed in January 2021, but the original members were
informed of their selection in late November 2020. This early start is
important, as the panel quickly identified a cause that was important to the
ECR community: the budget allocated for frontier research in Horizon Europe.
The panel members formulated a statement, determined how the panel would
endorse such statements (a quorum of 50% participation), and publicly issued
the endorsed statement on the ECFA website on December 14, 2020 [18]. This was
all done before the official kick-off of the panel because the members were
passionate about the topic and needed to act quickly to represent the ECR
community.

The next notable interaction relates to the ECFA Detector R&D Roadmap process,
as discussed in Section 3.1. In this instance, the panel received a request
from ECFA, in March 2021, to gather feedback from the ECR community on the
topic of training in instrumentation. The panel quickly reacted to this
request by holding a live meeting and distributing a survey, which gathered
473 responses. The resulting information was conveyed back to ECFA in April
2021, and was written up in a report submitted to arXiv in July 2021 [12]. A
follow-up summary was then presented by a panel member at the 15th Pisa
Meeting on Advanced Detectors [13].

At the end of 2021, the ECR panel was invited to submit a contribution to the
ECFA Newsletter #8 (Winter 2021). The panel responded to this opportunity,
providing a one-page summary of the first year of activities. Following this
first successful contribution, the panel has been invited and has subsequently
submitted contributions to the ECFA Newsletter #9 (Summer 2022) and the
upcoming ECFA Newsletter #10 (Winter 2022), thereby providing bi-annual
updates on the progress and activities of the panel. All of the newsletters
can be found in Ref. [19].

The war in Ukraine has had, and is continuing to have, a profound impact on
the high energy physics community and society at large. The situation is
delicate, as there can be strong views on how to react; they can present
opposing directions, and with a variety of different motivations. Moreover,
the ECR viewpoint on how to best respond to this situation may or may not be
aligned with the decisions taken in other contexts, and those decisions can
have a significant impact on individuals within the ECR community. The panel
therefore decided it was important to provide ECR input to the CERN Council
meeting in June 2022, where a decision was planned on whether or not to
suspend the international collaboration agreements between CERN and Russia,
Belarus, and JINR. This input took the form of a brief statement on different
possible scenarios, which summarised the results of a panel-internal survey;
this survey was internal both due to time constraints and to ensure that each
ECFA member country had equal say in the statement. Due to the sensitive
nature of the topic, the statement was not publicly released, rather it was
sent to the PECFA group, the CERN Council Secretariat, and the CERN Council
Chair.

The first survey that the panel distributed to the ECR community, on the topic
of training in instrumentation, was very successful in obtaining useful
feedback on the current situation as seen by ECRs and possible future
improvements. Multiple groups within the panel therefore began to prepare
subsequent surveys to gather collective feedback on other topics of importance
to the ECR community. These efforts eventually merged, both to provide a
single survey rather than tiring out the community by asking for feedback too
often, and to benefit from having more people reviewing the survey in advance
to ensure that it asked the right questions and that it did so in an
appropriate manner. The resulting survey, which covered a variety of topics
relating to career prospects and diversity in physics programme, was
distributed in September 2022. By the time the survey closed in October, 684
responses were received, providing a wealth of data to help understanding the
ECR view on numerous important questions. The analysis of this data is now
ongoing, and will be released publicly as soon as the results are ready for
distribution.

One of the challenges identified in the training in instrumentation survey was
the lack of inter-experimental networking opportunities for ECRs involved in
instrumentation. The panel has been working to remedy this, both by gathering
information on relevant schools/conferences [20] and by organising dedicated
events. The first panel-led event to support ECR networking in instrumentation
took place in October 2022, with three invited speakers/panelists, and 45
participants [14]. Future events are being planned to continue to support this
part of the ECR community.

Anyone from the high energy physics community is always welcome to contact the
ECR panel’s organisation committee<EMAIL_ADDRESS>to suggest
future activities or other types of interactions that should be pursued.
Anyone who is interested in following the activities of the ECR panel is
welcome to sign up to the announcement mailing list (ecfa-ecr-
announcements@cern.ch); this is a CERN-hosted mailing list, and thus
registration requires either having a CERN account or CERN lightweight
account, the latter of which does not require any CERN affiliation.

##  5 Outlook

In the November 2022 meeting of PECFA, new members of the ECFA ECR panel were
appointed to replace members ending their mandate, resulting in a change-over
of around half of the ECR panel members. When discussing the logistics of the
changeover of the panel (which proceeds through the RECFA delegates of each
country/institute), it was noted that the two-year mandate with an option to
extend for a further two was potentially less applicable to ECRs (who are
often on short-term contracts). There was also a discussion of whether more
turnover in the panel (i.e. members only doing two-year terms) would increase
opportunities for more ECRs to participate in the panel and benefit both from
the professional experience and visibility. However, as significant time was
spent in the first year of the panel’s activities establishing a working
structure, it was agreed that any ECR member wishing to remain for at least
another year would have their mandate renewed, with the view that the new
panel would revisit this discussion. This approach also ensures some
continuity in the organisation committee and existing working groups.

In the September 2022 meeting of the ECR panel, it was decided that a handover
meeting would be organised by the outgoing organisation committee to
facilitate a smooth transition to the new panel. The incoming panel can
benefit from the structures already in place whilst also taking ownership to
review and adapt the activities/operation of the panel into the future. This
handover meeting will take place in January 2023, and all outgoing and
incoming panel members will be invited. In addition to revisiting the strategy
for extending the mandate of the panel, the new panel will be encouraged to
discuss the ideas/suggestions raised in the September meeting. In particular,
there was a discussion on how to further use the ECR panel to facilitate
discussions in different countries on the ECFA roadmap following the European
Strategy Update. In 2022 two dedicated ECR meetings on future colliders were
organised in the UK, but it was noted that expecting the ECR panel members
from each country to organise such meetings would be resource intensive and
that organising a central “ECR Future Collider” event through the panel, with
the potential for break-out sessions for specific countries/institutes, may be
more efficient.

The activities of the ECR panel in its first two years of operation have
enabled the views, concerns, and ideas of ECRs to influence discussions and
decision making across a broad range of areas of high energy physics. To aid
the first significant changeover in panel composition, this report has
highlighted the main achievements of the panel to date, and has provided a
brief look to the future challenges and opportunities for the incoming ECR
panel.

## References

  * [1] “The ECFA Early-Career Researchers Panel (2021-2022)” Accessed: 2022-12-01  URL: https://ecfa.web.cern.ch/ecfa-early-career-researchers-panel
  * [2] N. Andari  “Report on the ECFA Early-Career Researchers Debate on the 2020 European Strategy Update for Particle Physics”, 2020  arXiv:2002.02837 [hep-ex]
  * [3] “107th plenary ECFA meeting” Accessed: 2022-12-01  URL: https://indico.cern.ch/event/966397/
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  * [12] ECFA Early-Career Researcher Panel  “Results of the 2021 ECFA Early-Career Researcher Survey on Training in Instrumentation” Editors: Jan-Hendrik Arling, Katherine Dunne, Armin Ilg, Adrián Irles, Predrag Milenovic, Steven Schramm, Mariana Shopova, and Sarah Williams, 2021  arXiv: https://cds.cern.ch/record/2775921
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