Written evidence submitted by Professor
Phil Allport, Head of Particle Physics, Director of the Liverpool
Semiconductor Detector Centre, Chair, Institute of Physics High
Energy Particle Physics Group, University of Liverpool (APP 41)
Dear Andrew
Thank you very much for the opportunity to present
evidence yesterday. You asked for details about the survey I referred
to. This developed from the widespread concern about job prospects
for current UK post-docs in particle physics, leading a Liverpool
post-doc at CERN (Paul Laycock, who is also ATLAS Deputy Calibration
Manager) to somehow find the time to put together a web based
survey (with summary to be found at http://hep.ph.liv.ac.uk/~laycock/PhysicsCareersSurvey/Results.html)
which was circulated among the UK community mostly working on
CERN based experiments. The respondents were mainly either employed
by UK institutions or from other collaborating institutions in
the 83 countries with formal links to CERN. The survey is biased
in that it mainly addresses those who are still employed in the
field, predominantly has responses from those working at CERN,
and of course reflects the view of those willing to take the time
to complete the survey. Nevertheless, as I said in my evidence,
I do think some clear patterns emerge that help give weight to
the strong concerns about prospects for UK employment being expressed
by those who are just starting out on careers in this area.
I wonder if I could also raise another issue. In
the evidence of Professor Mason, he clearly believed I had not
understood the proposal concerning concentration of detector construction
activities "in-house" at the national laboratories.
I had within the previous month sat with both the Director Programmes
STFC (Professor Womersely) and the Chief Operating Officer STFC
(Professor Wade) and I believe I fully understand what is being
proposed. My concern was not where R&D is to be carried out
(as I believe Professor Mason assumed) but the actual construction
work. The very largest university particle physics groups have
major construction capabilities and unique expertise. The largest
arrays of silicon detectors ever constructed in the UK (the ATLAS
semiconductor tracker barrels and the 9 disc EndCap-C (amounting
to roughly 500,000 square centimetres of silicon sensors) were
assembled and tested at Liverpool and Oxford, with modules sent
from 30 institutes in 12 countries for assembly at these sites.
In the Liverpool Semiconductor Detector Centre (LSDC), of which
I am Director, we have built modules and assembled the full array
for the ATLAS EndCap-C, all the LHCb Vertex Locator modules, the
vertex detector of the ALPHA (anti-hydrogen) experiment, a third
of the T2K ECAL, and many smaller projects. We also lead (like
Oxford, Imperial College and other large groups) significant aspects
of the LHC General Purpose Detector (ATLAS and CMS) upgrade prototyping
internationally, with the ATLAS and CMS Upgrade Coordinators at
Liverpool at Imperial respectively. The UK is also poised to take
major leadership in the LHCb upgrade activities (were these to
be supported by STFC).
The point I want to make is that future construction
effort will also have to be at institutions which are fully engaged
in the physics exploitation and this is the model that applies
to those aspects carried out both in the universities and in the
national laboratories. The model being proposed by STFC is to
separate construction from those who understand the project intimately
and who are involved at the highest level in the international
collaborations and lead much of the planning. This goes against
accepted practice everywhere else in the world and, I and many
others believe, can only lead to a huge loss of UK capability
and leadership if implemented. Their current plans also threaten
the continuation of the large scale investment in capabilities
and expertise to be found in the largest UK university groups,
which are also so essential to providing an excellent training-ground
for the technologists of tomorrow. Given where the largest recent
construction activities have been concentrated, I do find their
proposal perverse and potentially highly damaging. I must of course
fully declare my interest as Director of the LSDC and as the coordinator,
internationally, of the ATLAS Upgrade programme.
With thanks again for all the time the Science and
Technology Committee has devoted to this business.
Professor Phil Allport
Head of Particle Physics
Director of the Liverpool Semiconductor Detector Centre
Chair Institute of Physics High Energy Particle Physics Group
University of Liverpool
17 March 2011
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