The Open Symposium on the European Strategy for Particle Physics (ESPP) concluded on June 27, 2025, in Venice, serving as a critical community consultation for formulating Europe’s next major project in high-energy physics.
“The time is ripe to forge a brilliant future for our field in Europe, together with our global partners,” said Fabiola Gianotti, CERN Director-General. “The worldwide CERN community’s achievements in implementing the 2020 ESPP update prove that we are a strong community, capable of designing, building and operating facilities of astounding complexity that consistently exceed expectations. This is our greatest asset as we prepare for even more ambitious projects.”
Here’s what emerged:
🧪 1. Broad Community Engagement
- The meeting gathered hundreds of scientists worldwide to discuss inputs submitted by March 31, including national white papers, early career researcher feedback, sustainability initiatives, and proposals like the FCC‑ee/pp, ILC, CEPC, muon collider, neutrino facilities, and dark-sector experiments .
- Plenary sessions reviewed implementation of the 2020 strategy and launched into themed working-group discussions (physics, accelerators, detectors, computing)
🚀 2. Next-Collider Dialogue
- A central focus was selecting Europe’s next flagship collider post-High-Luminosity LHC. The favored option remains the integrated Future Circular Collider (FCC) concept (FCC‑ee followed by FCC‑pp), though staged alternatives—a lower-energy hadron collider or participation in a linear Higgs factory—were actively debated .
- Discussions emphasized streamlined timelines to avoid a knowledge gap after HL‑LHC ends, international collaboration, and feasibility and cost concerns
🌍 3. Strong Non-Collider Emphasis
- Inputs highlighted the importance of neutrino facilities, dark-sector and rare-process experiments, and computational efforts, ensuring a balanced strategy beyond big colliders .
- The case for embedding environmental sustainability in all future projects became prominent .
🎓 4. Early Career Voices
- A white paper from early career researchers underscored issues like career paths, funding, equity, and training—urging the community to prioritize policies that support new talent .
🌐 5. International Collaboration
- Several contributions, notably “Science4Peace,” advocated for reaffirming Europe’s commitment to open, peaceful international cooperation—highlighting its vital role amid geopolitical challenges arxiv.org.
🔜 What’s Next?
- Over the summer and autumn, the European Strategy Group (ESG) will craft a draft strategy using Symposium inputs. This draft will be presented and debated in a closed ESG session in Ascona, Switzerland (Dec 1–5, 2025).
- A finalized strategy will be submitted to the CERN Council for approval by June 2026 .
✅ In Summary
- The Venice Symposium successfully brought together the global particle physics community to weigh in on priorities.
- While no final decisions were made, the dominant momentum supports the FCC integrated approach, backed by robust alternatives and complementary investments.
- There’s a clear push for building an inclusive, sustainable, and internationally collaborative roadmap—and integrating early-career perspectives to future-proof the field.
* This article was written with substantial contributions from OpenAI.