Universities and Laboratories for a common goal
by Giuliano Franchetti (GSI) and Frank Zimmermann (CERN)
Some of the ULA2014 participants in front of the Institute of Applied Physics, Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main. Image credit: Fips Schneider, IAP, U. Frankfurt
“Universities meet Laboratories” (ULA2014) workshop was a pioneering attempt to bring together representatives of the academic world and of laboratories to resolve differences and discuss synergies for working toward a common goal. Amongst many, this included topics like research evaluation and how to make accelerator science an attractive career choice. The event was attended by over 40 key players from all over Europe.
The workshop revealed a unanimous consensus among the participants from universities across Europe that the field of accelerator physics and technology appears to be often disadvantaged by an inadequate standing in the academic environment.
A very critical observation and issue is that students across European universities do not choose accelerator physics as a study topic and most importantly, many of them are not even aware of accelerator physics as a possible career path. For that reason greater efforts should be made for attracting students in the first stage of their studies. Another issue that was raised is that joint PhD supervision has become a difficult process because the needs of the laboratories do not always match the university research interest.
In terms of research assessments the workshop has evidenced a distinct difference of the research evaluation at universities and laboratories. This difference does not only prevent some laboratory staff from competing for job posts at universities, but it also renders collaboration with laboratories less attractive for the university staff. One reason is that laboratories traditionally disseminate their work in conference proceedings (if at all), while the universities consider only the publications in peer-reviewed journals. Moreover, given the strict metric evaluation the universities apply like the h-factor that disregards other relevant scientific outputs, it occurs that accelerator physics journals are suffering from a low impact factor, which is becoming a discriminating element in the research evaluation.
The workshop has also highlighted the positive impact of three major European and American accelerator schools – CERN Accelerator School (CAS), Joint Universities Accelerator School (JUAS), and US Particle Accelerator School (USPAS) – as well as accelerator training at universities, with Germany leading the way. In Japan the combination of the Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI) and the Inter-University Research Institute Corporation has proven effective. A report on the TIARA survey results showed that many ongoing activities require more training in accelerators. In most of the European countries the elevation of the discipline to the same as level as other more established branches of physics is being pursued by self-organization of the community (e.g. KfB in Germany, CONECTA in Spain), and with the support of the EPS-AG. In general a deeper discussion of these subjects is required. Although, good experience with joint research, and including green field academic accelerator studies, has been reported from the UK.
Many ways to attract more students to the accelerator science were discussed. In particular, Philip Bambade, Accelerator Department Head at LAL Orsay, proposed and highlighted several promising approaches.
A key to attractiveness can be the multi/inter-disciplinary character of accelerator science. Another factor can be that compared to fields like HEP or even nuclear physics, accelerator scientists can be both theorists and experimentalists at the same time.
With the evolution towards smaller, very sophisticated, accelerators, another possible path is a closer connection between the accelerator scientists and the users, through approaches integrating these two communities.
