The headquarters of the Instituto Galego de Física de Altas Enerxías (IGFAE), a joint centre of the USC and the Xunta de Galicia, hosted the meeting of its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) on 21 and 22 October. This committee, composed by leading international scientists, has been evaluating the scientific work of the IGFAE and the strategic plan drawn up for the coming years.
The meeting began on Monday morning with a report by the director of the IGFAE, Carlos Salgado, which reviewed the main scientific achievements of the Institute in recent years, as well as the challenges for the future, marked by the opening of the new premises of the centre and the double accreditation of excellence obtained by the centre (María de Maeztu and the Network of Galician research centres). Afterwards, representatives of three of the eight research programmes (LHCb, Quantum Chromodynamics and String Theory) presented their respective work reports. The SAB was also able to visit the new IGFAE facilities, whose works are expected to be completed by the end of 2024. In this first part of the visit, new opportunities in Quantum Science and Technology that the Institute could seize were also discussed.
After the lunch break, the SAB held meetings with junior staff, PhD students and postdocs, during which they discussed the working environment and the scientific and training perspectives of the early stages of the research career. The final part of the first day was devoted to analysing the IGFAE’s presence in the European Strategy for Particle Physics, the evaluation of individual research staff, and concluded with a meeting with the Institute’s management.
On Tuesday, the SAB met with the IGFAE Governing Board, the main decision-making body in the structure of the centre. The meeting was attended by the rector of the University of Santiago de Compostela, Antonio López, the vice-rector for Science Policy, Pilar Bermejo, and the emeritus professor Máximo Plo Casasús, as well as the director of the IGFAE, Carlos Salgado, and the deputy director, Abraham Gallas.
The role of SAB in the IGFAE’s progress
The visit ended with a closed meeting of the SAB, from which the guidelines for strengthening the centre’s strategy in the coming years will emerge. The reports of this committee are essential in the IGFAE’s operating model: through these external evaluations, the level of fulfilment of the main scientific objectives and research programmes is analysed in order to set the way forward.
From the SAB, the meeting was attended by Paolo Giubellino (president of Commisione Scientifica Nazionale III do Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Italy), Francis Halzen (initiator of the IceCube and AMANDA scientific collaborations at the South Pole) and Giulia Zanderighi (director general of the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich-Germany).
Abraham Gallas, Carlos Salgado, Pilar Bermejo, Francis Halzen, Antonio López, Giulia Zanderighi and Paolo Giubellino.
