Geneva, 15 December 2000. The CERN Council, where the representatives of the 20 Member States of the Organization decide on scientific programmes and financial resources, held its 116th session on 15 December under the chairmanship of Dr. Hans C. Eschelbacher (DE).
Geneva, 15 December 2000. The CERN Council, where the representatives of the 20 Member States of the Organization decide on scientific programmes and financial resources, held its 116th session on 15 December under the chairmanship of Dr. Hans C. Eschelbacher (DE).
"Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi!"
The Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP) era has ended and CERN's future is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), stated Director General, Prof. Luciano Maiani. He opened his report to Council with a 'homage to LEP', which reached the end of its career during 2000 and is now being dismantled to make way for CERN's next major machine, the LHC collider, in the same 27-kilometre tunnel.
The strong indications of a Higgs boson at 115 GeV found during the year were the culmination of LEP's long and distinguished physics career, during which the machine opened up new regimes of precision physics, involving all the fundamental forces of Nature. The Director General thanked both the accelerator physicists and experimentalists for their outstanding work throughout the 11 years of LEP operation.
Prof. Maiani also mentioned a number of new facilities and projects which got off the ground at CERN during the year 2000 : the Neutron Time-of-Flight facility which opens up a wide range of new applications and studies; the Antiproton Decelerator (AD) and its experiments on antihydrogen and other exotic atoms; and the CERN to Gran Sasso neutrino project (CNGS), in which a CERN neutrino beam will be monitored by experiments 700 km distant. Next year, the major COMPASS experiment using muon beams at CERN's SPS synchrotron will begin to take data.
LHC is now the focus of effort and CERN is pushing for physics to begin as soon as possible. Development, construction and installation are on schedule and major international commitment for the machine and its four large experiments is now very visible. The LHC experiments, with collaborating institutes all over the world, will have a voracious appetite for data, and major projects to provide the distributed Data Grid processing power to meet this demand are already underway, with significant support from the European Union and from CERN Member States.
5-yearly review of remunerations
After detailed scrutiny by the Member State delegates, the Council approved a rounded package of measures related to Staff remuneration. There will be a salary adjustment of 4.32% for the Staff and an increase of the Fellows' stipend of 1.52%, as a result of the 5-yearly review, combined with the salary adjustment for the year 2001 of 0.6%. In parallel there will be an increase in Staff and Fellows contributions to the CERN Health Insurance Scheme and to the Pension Fund of 1.52 %. Measures related to long term Health Care and Saved Leave were also agreed. Initiatives were approved at the same time to introduce a more flexible and dynamic career system.
New President of CERN Council
Professor Maurice Bourquin (CH) was elected as the new President of the CERN Council for the period of one year starting in January 2001. Prof. Bourquin is the first President of Council from Switzerland. Dr Hans Eschelbacher, the outgoing President was warmly applauded after he had paid tribute to the excellent work of the Laboratory and expressed his satisfaction and enjoyment of his three year mandate.
Prof. R. Sosnowski (PL) was elected Vice-President of Council for one year starting in January 2001.
Mrs B. Sode-Mogensen (DK) was appointed Chairperson of the Finance Committee for a period of one year as from 1 January 2001.
Dr. J. Seed (GB) was appointed Vice-Chairperson of Finance Committee for the same period.
Senior Staff Appointments
Mr. Jan van der Boon was nominated Director of Administration from 1 January 2001 to 31 December 2003.
Mr. Vincent Hatton was appointed Leader of the HR Division from 1 January 2001 to 30 April 2003.
Directors (photo):
Director for Collider Programmes : R. Cashmore (GB)
Director for Fixed Target and Future Programmes : C. Détraz (FR)
LHC Project Leader : L. Evans (GB)
Director for Accelerators : K. Hübner (AT)
Technical Director : J. May (DE)
Director of Administration : J. van der Boon (NL)
Director for Technology Transfer
and for Scientific Computing : H.F. Hoffmann(DE)
Division Leaders (photo):
Administrative Support (AS): J. Ferguson (GB)
Information Technology (IT) : M. Delfino (ES)
Engineering Support and Technologies (EST): D. Güsewell (DE)
Education and Technology Transfer (ETT) : J.-A. Rubio (ES)
Finance (FI) : A. Naudi (CH/GB)
Large Hadron Collider (LHC) : Ph. Lebrun (FR)
Experimental Physics (EP) : G. Goggi (IT)
Human Resources (HR) : V. Hatton (GB)
Proton Synchrotron (PS) : J.-P. Delahaye (FR)
SPS + LEP (SL) : S. Myers (GB)
Supplies, Procurement and Logistics (SPL): K.H. Kissler (DE)
Technical Inspection & Safety Division (TIS) : H. Schönbacher (AT)
Technical Support (ST) : A. Scaramelli (IT)
Theory (TH) : G. Altarelli (IT)
1. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and Unesco have observer status.