Clear the stage for AIDA-2020
Felix Sefkow (DESY), 27/05/2016

Felix Sefkow, AIDA-2020 Scientific Coordinator (Image: DESY)

It is my pleasure to welcome you to this first issue of On Track, the newsletter of the AIDA-2020 project and thus the community of detector developers – those preparing the seed from which we hope to harvest new discoveries in the future.

We all know that particle physics is a very rewarding field, but it also takes a lot of vision and planning to develop detectors at the forefront of technology for future projects; especially whilst we’re still more or less at the beginning of data taking with our current project, the LHC. These detectors for future projects need world-class testing infrastructures and AIDA-2020 makes sure that detectors can be tested thoroughly and efficiently in order to be ready to provide world-class technology when the time comes.

It is the 38 AIDA-2020 institutions in 19 European countries that make this EU project such an important contributor to European leadership in the field of particle physics. It bundles resources and excellence, ensures knowledge exchange, fosters cooperation amongst experts, between experts and industry and continues in the tradition of previous successful EU projects such as EUDET and the first edition of AIDA. This project actually takes its previous iterations one step further by uniting the communities of detector developers from the LHC, the linear collider and the neutrino world in joint activities.

I would like to thank all contributors to this first issue of On Track, and I wish everyone pleasant and interesting reading. We hope that this newsletter serves to further catalysing the exchange and coherence in our community, and we invite all our partners to contribute to the issues to come!