News from Council - November 2009

STFC Council, meeting in Swindon on 24 November, has formally congratulated CERN on the global science milestone of the successful restart of the Large Hadron Collider, followed quickly by the first collisions on 23 November. Significant numbers of UK physicists, researchers, engineers and technicians have been involved in the construction and operation of the LHC, both at CERN and in UK institutions. STFC is the UK funding body for CERN.

The primary focus of Council's latest meeting was a review of the programme prioritisation now underway. The chair and deputy chair of Science Board, Professors Jenny Thomas and Tony Ryan, discussed the process of input from advisory panels to the Physical And Life Sciences Committee (PALS) and the Particle Physics, Astronomy and Nuclear Physics Science Committee (PPAN), and thence to Science Board which will meet 7-8 December to finalise its recommendations to the Council meeting on 15 December. Council agreed the importance of informing the community as quickly as possible after its meeting of the outcome.

Council also received regular reports on financial issues, as well as a report from Audit Committee. The next meeting of Council is at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory on 15 December.