# The ECFA Early-Career Researchers Panel:
Report for the year 2023

Julia Allen  University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh; United Kingdom  Bruno Alves
Ecole Polytechnique, Ile-de-France; France  Jan-Hendrik Arling  Editor
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Hamburg; Germany  Kamil Augsten
Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, Czech Technical
University in Prague, Prague; Czech Republic  Emanuele Bagnaschi  CERN,
Geneva; Switzerland  Giovanni Benato  INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Gran
Sasso, L’Aquila; Italy  Anna Bennecke  Université Catholique de Louvain,
Brussels; Belgium  Cecilia Borca  Editor  University of Torino and INFN,
Turin; Italy  Paulo Braz  Institute for Physics, University of Graz, Graz;
Austria  Lydia Brenner  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  Yannick Dengler  Institute for Physics, University of Graz, Graz;
Austria  Christina Dimitriadi  Uppsala University, Uppsala; Sweden  Eleonora
Diociaiuti  National Laboratory of Frascati and INFN, Frascati; Italy  Laurent
Dufour  CERN, Geneva; Switzerland  Patrick Dunne  Blackett Laboratory,
Imperial College London, London; United Kingdom  Ozgur Etisken  Kirrikale
University, Kirrikale; Turkey  Silvia Ferrario Ravasio  CERN, Geneva;
Switzerland  Nikolai Fomin  University of Bergen, Bergen; Norway  Andrea
Garcia Alonso  Nikhef National Institute for Subatomic Physics and University
of Amsterdam, Amsterdam; Netherlands  Leif Gellersen  Lund University, Lund;
Sweden  Andreas Gsponer  Institute of High Energy Physics, Austrian Academy of
Sciences, Vienna; Austria  Tomas Herman  Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and
Physical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague; Czech
Republic  Bojan Hiti  Department of Experimental Particle Physics, Jožef
Stefan Institute and Department of Physics, University of Ljubljana,
Ljubljana; Slovenia  Laura Huhta  Department of Physics, University of
Jyväskylä and Helsinki Institute of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki;
Finland  Armin Ilg  Editor  Physik-Institut, University of Zürich, Zürich;
Switzerland  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  Department of Physics, University of Helsinki,
Helsinki; Finland  Suzanne Klaver  Uppsala University, Uppsala; Sweden  Arman
Korajac  Department of Experimental Particle Physics, Jožef Stefan Institute
and Department of Physics, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana; Slovenia
Anastasia Kotsokechagia  IRFU, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette;
France  Meike Kussner  Institut für Experimentalphysik, Ruhr-Universität
Bochum; Germany  Aleksandra Lelek  Universiteit Antwerpen, Antwerpen; Belgium
Guiseppe Lospalluto  Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, ETH
Zürich, Zürich; Switzerland  Péter Major  MTA-ELTE Lendület CMS Particle and
Nuclear Physics Group, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest; Hungary  Veljko
Maksimovic  Institute of Physics, University of Belgrade, Belgrade; Serbia
Jakub Malczewski  Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish
Academy of Sciences, Kraków; Poland  Carla Marin Benito  Institut de Ciencies
del Cosmos, Universidad de Barcelona, Barcelona; Spain  Paula Martinez Suarez
Institut de Fisica d’Altes Energies, Universidad Autonoma Barcelona,
Barcelona; Spain  Vukasin Milosevic  Institute of High Energy Physics,
Beijing; China  Atanu Modak  Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Oxford; United
Kingdom  Arnau Morancho Tarda  Editor  Niels Bohr Institute, University of
Copenhagen, Copenhagen; Denmark  Laura Moreno Valero  Institut für
Theoretische Physik, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Münster;
Germany  Elisabeth Niel  École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne;
Switzerland  Nikiforos Nikiforou  CERN, Geneva; Switzerland  Anja Novosel
Department of Experimental Particle Physics, Jožef Stefan Institute and
Department of Physics, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana; Slovenia  Petja
Paakkinen  Department of Physics, University of Jyväskylä and Helsinki
Institute of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki; Finland  Holly Pacey
Editor  University of Oxford, Oxford; United Kingdom  Rute Pedro  Laboratório
de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas - LIP, Lisboa; Portugal
Marko Pesut  Editor  Physik-Institut, University of Zürich, Zürich;
Switzerland  Guillaume Pietrzyk  IRFU, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-
Yvette; France  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  Archita Rani
Dash  Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Münster; Germany  Géraldine
Räuber  Institute of High Energy Physics, Austrian Academy of Sciences,
Vienna; Austria  Mariana Shopova  Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear
Energy, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia; Bulgaria  Radoslav Someonov
Sofia University, Sofia; Bulgaria  Sinem Simsek  Istinye University, Istanbul;
Turkey  Kirill Skovpen  Ghent University, Ghent; Belgium  Filomena Sopkova
Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava; Slovakia  Fernando Souza  Laboratório
de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas - LIP, Lisboa; Portugal
Elisabetta Spadaro Norella  Editor  University of Genoa and INFN, Genoa; Italy
Marta Urbaniak  Editor  University of Silesia in Katowice, Katowice; Poland
Lourdes Urda Gomez  Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas Medioambientales y
Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid; Spain  Erik Wallin  Lund University, Lund;
Sweden  Valentina Zaccolo  University of Trieste and INFN, Trieste; Italy
Nima Zardoshti  CERN, Geneva; Switzerland  Grzegorz Zarnecki  Henryk
Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences,
Kraków; Poland

##  1 Executive Summary

The Early-Career Researchers (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 [3].
Following this, the panel aims to continue to provide ECR input to ECFA, and
to the 2026 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. The panel 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 up
to five members is selected from within the panel as observers to Plenary ECFA
(PECFA) meetings, and one of these panellists is endorsed as an observer to
Restricted ECFA (RECFA) meetings.

This annual report of the ECFA ECR panel aims to inform about the composition,
the pursued activities and achievements of the ECR panel in 2023. A similar
report on the activities in 2021–2022 can be found in Ref. [4]. The structure
of this report is as following: The membership composition and the active
roles within the panel are introduced in Section 2. An overview of the active
working groups and their activities are provided in Section 3, while Section 4
summarises interactions between the ECR panel and the broader community in a
variety of contexts. Section 5 finally provides a short outlook for the panel
into 2024 and beyond.

##  2 Panel Structure

###  2.1 ECR Panel Membership

The ECR panel, as of December 2023, consists of 68 members representing 26
distinct entities: 25 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. As such, seven
major laboratories have dedicated representation.

Panel members are selected by the national RECFA representatives, or the CERN
RECFA representative, as appropriate. It can also involve discussion amongst
the appropriate PECFA representatives. In some countries this follows an
nomination/self-nomination procedure open to all ECRs in the country to obtain
a list of candidates. 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 2023, 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 | Mandate Notes
---|---|---|---
CERN | Emanuele Bagnaschi | Research Fellow, Theory | Ended 06/2023
Laurent Dufour | LD Research Fellow, LHCb |
Silvia Ferrario Ravasio | TH Research Fellow, Theory | Started 07/2023
| Nima Zardoshti | Staff, ALICE |
Austria | Yannick Dengler | PhD student, Theory |
Andreas Gsponer | PhD student, Detector Physics | Started 07/2023
Géraldine Räuber | PhD student, HEPHY Vienna, Belle-II |
Belgium | Anna Bennecke | Postdoc, CMS |
Aleksandra Lelek | Postdoc, Phenomenology |
Kirill Skovpen | Postdoc, CMS |
Bulgaria | Mariana Shopova | Postdoc, CMS |
Radoslav Simeonov | PhD student, ALICE |
Croatia | - | - |
Cyprus | Nikiforos Nikiforou | Postdoc, ATLAS |
Czech Republic | Kamil Augsten | Assistant Professor, ATLAS and COMPASS |
Tomas Herman | PhD student, ALICE |
Kateřina Jarkovská | PhD student, theory |
Denmark | Arnau Morancho Tarda | PhD student, ATLAS | Started 07/2023
Finland | Laura Huhta | PhD student, ALICE |
Henning Kirschenmann | Senior Scientist, CMS |
Petja Paakkinen | Postdoc, Theory |
France | Anastasia Kotsokechagia | Postdoc, ATLAS |
Guillaume Pietrzyk | Postdoc, LHCb |
Germany | Meike Kussner | Postdoc, PANDA/BESII | Started 07/2023
Laura Moreno Valero | PhD student, Theory |
Archita Rani Dash | PhD student ATLAS | Started 07/2023
Germany/DESY | Jan-Hendrik Arling | Postdoc, ATLAS |
Greece | - | - |
Hungary | Péter Major | PhD student, CMS |
Israel | Michael Pitt | postdoc, LHC/EIC Forward physics |
Italy | Cecilia Borca | PhD student, CMS |
Elisabetta Spadoro Norella | Postdoc, LHCb |
Valentina Zaccolo | Assistant Professor, ALICE |
Italy/INFN-LNGS | Giovanni Benato | Research Fellow, Experimental Neutrino Physics |
Italy/INFN-LNF | Eleonora Diociaiuti | postdoc, Mu2e |
Netherlands | Jordy Degens | PhD student, ATLAS |
Andrea Garcia Alonso | Postdoc, ATLAS |
Suzanne Klaver | postdoc, LHCb |
Netherlands/NIKHEF | Lydia Brenner | ATLAS staff, Nikhef |
Norway | Nikolai Fomin | Posdoc, ATLAS |
Poland | Jakub Malczewski | PhD student, LHCb |
Marta Urbaniak | PhD student, NA61/SHINE |
Grzegorz Zarnecki | Postdoc, T2K | Started 07/2023
Portugal | Paulo Braz | Postdoc, Dark Matter |
Rute Pedro | Postdoc, ATLAS/R&D |
Fernando Souza | PhD student, Phenomenology |
Romania | Vlad-Mihai Placinta | postdoc/electronics engineer, LHCb |
Serbia | Jelena Jovicevic | Research Professor, ATLAS |
Veljko Maksimovic | PhD student, ATLAS |
Vukasin Milosevic | Postdoc, CMS |
Slovakia | Lucia Keszeghova | PhD student, ATLAS |
Filomena Sopkova | PhD student, ATLAS |
Slovenia | Bojan Hiti | postdoc, ATLAS |
Arman Korajac | PhD student, Theory |
Anja Novosel | PhD student, Belle II |
Spain | Carla Marin Benito | Assistant Professor, LHCb |
Paula Martinez Suarez | PhD student, ATLAS |
Spain/CIEMAT | Lourdes Urda Gomez | PhD student, CMS |
Sweden | Christina Dimitriadi | PhD student, ATLAS | Started 07/2023
Leif Gellersen | Postdoc, Phenomenology | Started 07/2023
Erik Wallin | PhD student, ATLAS/LDMX | Started 07/2023
Switzerland | Armin Ilg | postdoc, FCC |
Elisabeth Neil | Postdoc, LHCb | Started 07/2023
Marko Pesut | PhD student, Theory/Phenomenology | Started 07/2023
Switzerland/PSI | Giuseppe Lospalluto | PhD student, Muon physics | Started 07/2023
Turkey | Ozgur Etisken | Lecturer, FCC | Started 07/2023
Sinema Simsek | Postdoc, ATLAS | Started 07/2023
UK | Julia Allen | PhD student, ATLAS |
Patrick Dunne | Lecturer, DUNE & T2K |
Holly Pacey | Research Fellow, ATLAS |
UK/STFC-RAL | Atanu Modak | LHCb/CMS |
Table 1: The full list of ECFA ECR panel members over 2023.

The official mandate of the ECR panel members was defined and approved by ECFA
[5]. This mandate defines the interactions between the panel and the parent
ECFA group, including the allocation of up to five PECFA observers, one of
which is also 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 around June, to prepare for
the July PECFA meeting; and one around September, to prepare for the November
PECFA meeting. There is the option to have an additional fourth meeting; this
fourth panel meeting was not deemed necessary in 2023.

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 previous years, the
panel chose to constrain themselves to having each meeting on a different day
of the week to the previous meeting in an attempt to avoid excluding
panellists with consistent constraints from ever being able to join. However,
in 2023, it was found to be better to just pick the meeting times to maximise
attendance, as there was always one clearly favoured option among panellists.
Detailed minutes of the meetings are always circulated after the meeting, and
a recording of the session as well as the presented slides are left on the
Indico agendas, to allow any panellists who couldn’t make the meetings to
catch up. Further to meetings or email communication, the panel opened a
Mattermost server in 2023 to facilitate more efficient and informal discussion
within the entire panel and within each working group and the organising
committee.

###  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’s aim 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, after which the RECFA
panellists compose a letter to the country’s government and Particle Physics
communities containing a set of recommendations.

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. For
example, the RECFA/PECFA observers will give a summary talk at each ECR panel
meeting.

The list of the observers representing the ECFA ECR panel in the PECFA
committee is shown in Table 2.

Name | Country/Lab | Role
---|---|---
Lydia Brenner | Netherlands | PECFA/RECFA Observer
Eleonora Diociaiuti | Italy | PECFA Observer
Henning Kirschenmann | Finland | PECFA Observer
Armin Ilg | Switzerland | PECFA Observer
Table 2: The list of observers to the Plenary and Restricted ECFA groups in
2023.

###  2.3 ECR Organisation Committee

The role of the ECFA ECR Panel Organisation Committee (OC) is the overall
coordination of the activities of the ECFA ECR panel and being the first point
of contact. Over the year 2023, three panel members were serving in the OC as
listed in Table 3.

Name | Country/Lab
---|---
Jan-Hendrik Arling | Germany/DESY
Holly Pacey | UK
Valentina Zaccolo | Italy
Table 3: The list of members of the ECFA ECR Panel Organisation Committee in
2023

In detail, the responsibilities for the OC are:

  * •

Organisation of the planned meetings of the ECR panel, including preparation
of the agenda and its contributions, chairing the meetings, taking minutes;

  * •

Point of contact for the ECFA secretary by handling requests from the ECFA
chair and help maintain the public-facing website;

  * •

Handling communication with the outside world by the publicly contactable ECFA
ECR list (ecfa-ecr-organisers@cern.ch);

  * •

Arranging for public talk allocation as a “speaker’s committee” type body;

  * •

Coordination of the publication of panel reports like the ECR contribution to
the bi-annual ECFA newsletters or the annual reports, such as this one.

##  3 Panel Working Groups

For the effective working and the day-by-day activities, the ECR panel members
are organising themselves within working groups for individual topics and
events. These working groups are created on the basis of interests within the
panel, where each member can voluntarily decide to take part in a group. Due
to this setup it is naturally that the working groups, their members and
activities are evolving with time, such that the content of covered topics is
also dynamic.

In this section, the working groups with activities over the year 2023 are
listed and a summary of their activities in 2023 are shown.

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

In 2022, the Career Prospects and Diversity in Physics Programmes working
groups jointly produced and distributed a comprehensive survey which aimed to
better understand the issues faced by ECRs and what the ECFA ECR panel and
wider HEP community to do to promote or solve these. In March 2023, the survey
was closed, and through the remainder of the year the results of the survey
were analysed to produce a final report, which was published on the arXiv in
April 2024 in Ref. [8].

####  3.1.1 Working Group Composition

The composition of the two working groups who have worked on the ECR survey
analysis during 2023 is shown in Table 4.

Name | Country
---|---
Julia Allen | UK
Giovanni Benato | Italy
Kateřina Jarkovská | Czech Republic
Magdalena Kuich | Poland
Aleksandra Lelek | Belgium
Holly Pacey | UK
Guillaume Pietrzyk | France
Géraldine Räuber | Austria
Table 4: Composition of the Career Prospects and Diversity in Physics working
groups.

####  3.1.2 Structure and circulation of the survey

The survey was constructed to include around 100 questions assessing
respondent demographics and their views and experiences in a wide variety of
topics. A summary of these is:

  1. 1.

Demographics.

  2. 2.

Experience of working in a research group.

  3. 3.

Experience of working in a collaboration.

  4. 4.

Views on the diversity of physics programmes.

  5. 5.

Experience and views on career prospects.

  6. 6.

Experience and views on Work-life balance.

  7. 7.

Experiences of discrimination.

  8. 8.

Views on respondents’ recognition and visibility.

  9. 9.

Respondents’ suggestions on what the ECFA ECFA Panel could do to support ECRs’
career development.

The survey was distributed among larger experiments, national mailing lists
(via the ECFA national contacts and/or ECR panel members), and other ECR
mailing lists. The survey was also circulated further for the 2023 RECFA visit
to the Czech Republic. Overall, 759 responses were obtained.

####  3.1.3 Analysis results

The survey analysis was divided into two parts: firstly clearly presenting the
responses to each question in the survey, secondly to investigate how the
responses were correlated between questions and how responses depended on
respondent demographics. Finally, the analysis results and respondents’
answers to open questions asking for ideas of how the panel could help them, a
set of recommendations was produced. These suggest events which could be held
to facilitate discussion in the academic particle physics community and
further inform ECRs on a variety of topics. Furthermore, it suggests actions
that the wider HEP community could consider to improve ECR experiences. Since
the analysis results were extensive, rather than repeating them in this
summary report we recommend that readers take a look at the full arXiv
document [8].

###  3.2 Software/Machine Learning applications for future colliders

The working group is dedicated to software and machine learning for
instrumentation and detector physics. The motivation for its creation was the
analysis of a survey conducted by the instrumentation working group, which
showed that the majority of people acknowledge the importance of software for
their work in instrumentation; however, they report that they have not
received any relevant training.

The previous and current activities of the group have focused on a
comprehensive review of existing software/Machine Learning (ML) techniques and
their applications in the field of instrumentation/detector physics and on
preparing a survey aimed at better understanding the needs and challenges
within the community. The overarching objective is to gather valuable insights
that will not only serve as constructive feedback for existing schools on
instrumentation but also play a central role in potentially designing a new
school.

A pilot survey was released and is currently being circulated amongst our
panel members and to the ECFA Training Panel for suggestions and input. The
survey is structured starting with a general part with questions on the
respondents’ work experience, their personal interests and attendance of
schools on Software and ML for instrumentation. The main body of the survey is
then characterised by questions divided by subject and concerning the
following topics of interest: Data Acquisition and Detector Control Systems,
Detector Electronics, Detector Simulation and Machine Learning. Once revised,
the final survey will be circulated among the larger experiments, ECR and
national mailing lists. The plan is to collect responses by the end of the
summer and publish the results of the survey by the end of 2024.

Name | Country
---|---
Cecilia Borca | Italy
Anastasia Kotsokechagia | France
Elisabetta Spadaro Norella | Italy
Marta Urbaniak | Poland
Table 5: Composition of the Software/ML applications for future colliders
working group.

###  3.3 Future Colliders

The European Strategy for Particle Physics (ESPP) was last updated in 2020
[3]. While strategy statement 3.a initiated the feasibility study of the
Future Circular Collider (FCC), statement 7.b stressed the importance of ECRs
in particle physics. Following this, ECFA created the ECFA ECR panel. Given
this close connection of our panel to the ESPP and to the topic of future
colliders, given the panel’s name, the Future Colliders Working Group (see
Table 6) was created at the start of 2023. This working group aims to inform
ECRs on future colliders and foster discussions within the ECR community so
that every ECR can shape their own opinion on our field’s direction.

As our first objective, we organised the Future Colliders for Early-Career
Researchers event, which took place at CERN on the 24th September 2023
(https://indico.cern.ch/event/1293507/). This hybrid ECFA-wide event attracted
more than one hundred in-person participants, with a similar number joining
the discussions over Zoom. The slides and recordings of the event are
available on the Indico agenda and will serve as a cohesive reference for ECRs
interested in future colliders. A summary of the event has furthermore just
been published on the arXiv [9].

Many aspects of future colliders such as funding and career perspectives are
country dependent. Using the knowledge gained during the organisation of the
ECFA-wide event, we created a blueprint for national events on future
colliders for ECRs [10]. The blueprint contains a list of sessions and talks
that could make up such an event and links to previous talks given. The goal
for 2024 is to have such national future collider events in as many ECFA
countries as possible.

Name | Country/Lab
---|---
Emanuele Bagnaschi | CERN
Lydia Brenner | Netherlands
Paulo Braz | Portugal
Christina Dimitriadi | Sweden
Patrick Dougan | UK
Laurent Dufour | CERN
Silvia Ferrario Ravasio | CERN
Nikolai Fomin | Norway
Armin Ilg | Switzerland
Arman Korajac | Slovenia
Giuseppe Lospalluto | Switzerland
Arnau Morancho Tarda | Denmark
Anja Novosel | Slovenia
Petja Paakkinen | Finland
Holly Pacey | UK
Marko Pesut | Switzerland
Michael Pitt | Israel
Mariana Shopova | Bulgaria
Erik Wallin | Sweden
Nima Zardoshti | CERN
Table 6: Composition of the Future Colliders working group.

###  3.4 Detector R&D and Networking in Instrumentation WG

This year no instrumentation-dedicated activities have been pursued in our
panel. We plan to hold further editions of the Early-Career Instrumentation
Forum (https://indico.cern.ch/event/1203836/), which was last held in October
2022. Future iterations of the ECIF could, for example, target specific
instrumentation technologies or other topics relevant to ECRs such as training
and networking in instrumentation. On the topic of training, the ECFA Training
Panel (https://ecfa.web.cern.ch/ecfa-training-panel-collot-et-al) was formed,
where also one representative from ECFA ECR is present.

##  4 Summary of Community Interactions

Over the last year, the ECFA ECR panel has interacted with the wider high
energy physics community in several different contexts. Interacting with the
wider ECR community in order to understand their priorities and views is
fundamental to the panel’s aims, in addition to conveying these to other
groups. The following section summarises interactions this year.

As discussed in Section 3.3, the panel organised the Future Colliders for
Early-Career Researchers event, which took place at CERN on the 24th September
2023, which had over one hundred in-person attendees. The event summary
published on the arXiv [9], and the slides/recordings on the agenda, will
collectively form a great reference for the community.

As was discussed in Section 3.1, the panel completed analysis of the Career
Prospects and Diversity in Physics Programmes joint survey during 2023. The
analysis was written into a report published on the arXiv on the 2nd April
2024 [8]. The report presents the views of 759 early-career researchers across
the world, aiming to raise awareness of their experiences and challenges in
academia to the wider high energy physics community. The report also ended
with sets of recommendations for what projects or events the panel could
organise in future years, and for what actions the wider hep community could
take to imprve the ECR experience. Within 2024 we hope to present this report
in various talks to ensure good engagement with the community.

At the EPS HEP 2023 conference in Hamburg, which took place from the 21st to
the 25th August, Armin Ilg represented the panel by giving a talk on “The ECFA
Early-Career Researcher Panel” [11]. This talk introduced the panel, and
summarised work done in 2021–2022, before introducing some of the work-in-
progress topics from 2023. Furthermore, at the 13th ICFA Seminar in DESY which
took place from 27th November – 1st December 2023, Lydia Brenner was invited
to give a presentation on behalf of the panel titled “Perspectives of Early-
Career Scientists” [12]. This summarised the work done over 2023, with a focus
on the outputs and future plans of the Future Colliders working group which is
more relevant for ICFA.

As in previous years, the ECR panel submitted contribution to both ECFA
Newsletters in 2023. In the 11th Newsletter in the summer, this summarised
work done within the first half of the year, presenting some preliminary
results from the Career Prospects and Diversity in Physics Programme Joint
Survey and the talk given at the EPS-HEP 2023 conference. In the 12th
Newsletter, we summarised the release of the first part of the survey analysis
document, the successful “Future Colliders for Early-Career Researchers”
event, and the presentation from our panel given at the ICFA Seminar. All of
the newsletters can be found in Ref. [13].

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

The year 2023 was, for the ECFA ECR panel, a year of sizeable transition, due
to a large turnover of panellists whose 2-years mandates ended. Several
members stayed on the panel with renewed mandates to aid the transition phase,
and led a critical review on the self-given organisation and structure. It was
decided to keep the existing structure, but to evolve the work focus onto
relevant topics which are timely or proposed by the panellists. As such, some
working groups were not pursued, or were less actively worked on, compared to
the panel’s first two years of activity. Instead, new working groups were
created and already delivered remarkable output for the broader community
concerning the interests of ECRs in the field.

Preparation for the next update of the European Strategy will start in 2024.
In line with the panel’s mandate, it will promote further discussion of topics
like future colliders amongst ECRs (for example by organising events following
the national event blueprint), and actively participate in existing planned
discussions. We will also aim to publish the results of the survey on Training
Quality in Instrumentation Software and Machine Learning. Moreover, there will
be another large turnover of panellists, leading to a panel almost orthogonal
in membership to the original composition.

The activities of the ECR panel in 2023 have continued to enable the views,
concerns, and ideas of ECRs to influence discussions and decision making
across a broad range of areas of high energy physics. This report has
highlighted the main achievements of the panel in 2023, and has provided a
brief look to the future challenges and opportunities for the incoming ECR
panellists.

## References

  * [1] “The ECFA Early-Career Researchers Panel (2021-2022)” Accessed: 2024-06-01  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] “2020 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics”  Geneva: CERN Council, 2020  DOI: 10.17181/ESU2020
  * [4] ECFA Early-Career Researcher Panel  “The ECFA Early Career Researcher’s Panel: composition, structure, and activities, 2021 – 2022” Editors: Jan-Hendrik Arling, Emanuele Bagnaschi, Xabier Cid Vidal, Katherine Dunne, Viktoria Hinger, Armin Ilg, Henning Kirschenmann, Steven Schramm, Paweł Sznajder, Sarah Williams, Valentina Zaccolo, 2022  arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.11238
  * [5] “Mandate ECFA Early-Career Researcher Panel” Accessed: 2022-12-01  URL: https://ecfa.web.cern.ch/mandate-ecfa-early-career-researcher-panel
  * [6] “Plenary ECFA webpage” Accessed: 2022-12-01  URL: https://ecfa.web.cern.ch/plenary-ecfa
  * [7] “Restricted ECFA webpage” Accessed: 2022-12-01  URL: https://ecfa.web.cern.ch/restricted-ecfa
  * [8] Julia Allen et al.  “Results of the 2022 ECFA Early-Career Researchers Panel survey on career prospects and diversity”  arXiv, 2024  DOI: 10.48550/ARXIV.2404.02074
  * [9] Future Colliders Working Group The ECFA ECR Panel  “Early-Career Researchers’ Perspective on Future Colliders”, 2024  arXiv:2407.01852 [hep-ex]
  * [10] Armin Ilg  “Blueprint for national events on future colliders for early-career researchers”  Zenodo, 2024  DOI: 10.5281/ZENODO.10869355
  * [11] Armin Ilg  “The ECFA Early-Career Researcher Panel” Accessed: 2024-06-01  URL: https://indico.desy.de/event/34916/contributions/142201/
  * [12] Lydia Brenner  “Perspectives of Early-Career Scientists” Accessed: 2024-06-01  URL: https://indico.desy.de/event/38293/contributions/152227/
  * [13] “ECFA Newsletters” Accessed: 2024-06-01  URL: https://ecfa.web.cern.ch/ecfa-newsletters