Dear colleagues, Congratulations on organising an excellent set of presentations and discussions in Birmingham. Reflecting on all this, I'd like to make a few observations and suggestions. 1. It was great to have open discussions with no `conflict of interest' exclusions, etc. You are now the people with the relevant information regarding the scientific programme and I feel it's very important that your recommendations (when you have made them) should be fully respected. As John Dainton said, this could be the turning point to the long-awaited transfer of decision-making to the community (as we enjoyed in the days of the PPESP and PPC, if anyone remembers them). It could of course be argued that `other factors' such as KE weighting should play a role, but our community has I think addressed that on several occasions. By far our main contribution in terms of KE is the supply of young scientists trained at the forefront of research, and that applies equally to all our research areas. 2. It would be very disappointing if, after all the hard work of 13-15 July and your subsequent deliberations, other factors were used to upset your recommendations. Once you have produced your list of subject areas to be supported at varying non-zero levels, I hope that PPAN will resist the temptation to draw a line at a re-defined `affordable' level, resulting in more projects cancelled, more `blood on the floor', to satisfy macho principles which in the past have been destructive of the science programme. 3. Having said that, there can always be subject areas and projects that have run into deep trouble or reached the end of their useful life, and should be stopped (historically, some or all of HERA-b, Gravity Probe B, CLOVER, etc). Sometimes this happens voluntarily (for example, the analysis of some LEP data continues even now, but nobody complains that they don't have a budget). Maybe it is similar for HERA, maybe not. You should judge about that. If they do need a budget, it would be pretty small. It could nevertheless be `high priority', in the sense of being scientifically damaging not to award it. 4. I realise that this is getting close to asking you to judge on projects rather than subject areas, but the dividing line is rather vague, and if you don't do it, who should? 5. Regarding the overall balance between R&D activities, I was generally impressed by many groups doing the best possible with stretched resources, in order for the UK to keep its head above water in the key areas. One exception, where I feel resources are skewed significantly, is in the muon collider/neutrino factory area. Some debatable points: Are the muon collider detector backgrounds truly `comparable' to beamstrahlung at the LC, as was claimed? No, not by many orders of magnitude. Even if they have found a way to use silicon vertex detectors/trackers, which I doubt, these will have enormously worse material budgets than at the LC, greatly damaging the clean physics promised by e+e- colliders. Can one seriously consider a single multi-MW drive beam feeding both a NF and a muon collider? (suggested as a means to unite the community). I believe, and this is supported by ICFA and below, that the widest geographical distribution of facilities between Europe, Asia and North America is the way to achieve the most robust long-term future for our field. Is it credible that either of these facilities would be hosted by the UK, let alone this combination, even if it would `fit on the Harwell campus', as was asserted? I think not, partly because their cost estimates include a high degree of wishful thinking. While the ILC has been subjected to a number of cost estimates and independent reviews, progressively refining the figures, the muon collider contingent has continued since Snowmass 1996 as a fringe group, always claiming to be much cheaper, flying in the face of evidence from JPARC and other proton driver facilities. Yet in a meeting in which each is given equal air-time, with some vociferous proponents of the muon collider, it is difficult for outsiders to learn the facts. However, one should ask what is the GDE-equivalent of the muon collider, and what is the opinion of ECFA, ACFA and ICFA? (It's true that HEPAP, despite previous enthusiastic support for the LC, recently chose to sit on the fence about everything, as they succumbed to high pressure from the Fermilab contingent.) 6. Somehow, the UK has been drawn into this fringe group, giving it disproportionate support on the grounds of potentially hosting such a facility. It has even been argued that `while the LC might be more important internationally, the NF/muon collider is more important for the UK'. In the current funding conditions, is it realistic to continue supporting this dream? 7. I feel that UK support for long-term R&D for future facilities and detectors, such as the LHC upgrades (for 10 times luminosity), LC, LHeC, NF, muon collider, should all be supported on a level playing field, since whichever becomes reality will almost certainly be hosted outside the UK. Once any of them become real projects, that will be the time to ramp up their support and terminate others. We should never (as has to a great extent happened since STFC `ceased investment' in ILC) get into a situation where the UK unilaterally and prematurely excludes itself from what could be the next major particle physics project. I think Terry Wyatt put this very well on Day 2 of the meeting, as something on which we could all agree, to which there was a general nodding of heads and no dissenting voices. It's a pity he wasn't consulted before December 11th, 2007! 8. How to avoid your prioritisation being misused higher up the chain? I would suggest you base your recommendations on the current overall figure for HEP support (experiments plus accelerator projects), and propose an allocation to the different subject areas as percentages, say 45% to LHC experiments, a% for neutrino experiments, b% for dark matter experiments, c% for EDM experiments, d% for MICE, then the R&D areas: e% for sLHC, f% for muon collider+NF (machine plus detectors), g% for LC R&D (machine plus detectors), h% for LHeC, j% for HERA analysis (maybe zero), and so on. You should also offer you current assessment of the time dependence (ie produce a quantitative roadmap). 9. The award of these allocations should of course not be automatic. They would as usual be subject to the provision of excellent proposals that satisfy the PPRP, the provision of progress reports that satisfy the oversight committees, and so on. The PPRP could be the engine for modest re-weighting, slightly increasing support where special KE promise was perceived. However, this aspect is notoriously difficult. Having had our ISIS R&D `zeroed out' by the PPRP last October, we have now attracted enthusiastic interest for applications at 4th generation light sources - spinoff is so often unpredictable even by the scientists themselves. Remember Rutherford's comments about nuclear power? 10. Of course, one should make changes from the current distribution somewhat adiabatically (for example any re-balancing between R&D for NF+muon collider and other areas could not happen overnight). Existing international commitments should be honoured. Also if next year's budget were to be significantly reduced, you might need to rethink the percentages and MIGHT for example need to curtail the R&D projects so as to protect the current physics programme. But if so, that should be YOUR decision, not imposed from above. THEIR job should be to maximise the budget for science, then award a fair distribution between the facilities and subject areas, including particle physics. If they let us down, it will be for our united community to react as best we can. Never again should we be placed in the position of individual subject areas being cancelled as a result of secret deliberations by scientifically disconnected funding agency people plus a few `insiders', as happened in 2007 (ILC, Gemini, all of solar-terrestrial physics, etc). I hope some of these suggestions may be helpful to you. Best of luck! Chris --------------------------------------- Chris Damerell e-mail: c.damerell at rl.ac.uk Rutherford Appleton Lab Chilton, Didcot OX11 0QX England