Mario Draghi, the FCC, China, and the future of particle physics

(This is the English translation of this post)

About a month ago, the Report on European Union Competitiveness, tasked to Mario Draghi by the European Commission, was released. It has been discussed widely, and I don't intend to provide a full analysis here. However, I find it interesting to highlight an aspect that I haven’t heard mentioned much in traditional media. Making here a super-condensed summary, the report urges the European Union to invest €750-800 billion annually to close the innovation gap between Europe, the United States, and China—a gap that is strikingly illustrated by this figure from the report:

The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is often debated as a perfect estimator of a country’s competitiveness and innovation (the report itself makes some important distinctions, and those interested can go and read further). Still, I think it’s fair to say that there’s at least a correlation between this indicator and the state of affairs.

One thing I found particularly interesting is that CERN is mentioned several times in the report. CERN’s experience is initially presented as a “success story” to learn from:

The first part of the box text above says (bold emphasis is mine):

A notable example of the remarkable returns from the joint collaboration of European countries is the creation of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in 1954. CERN started with an initial coalition of 12 European countries. Today, it comprises 23 European Member States, along with 11 non-European Associate Member States and 4 Observers (the EU, UNESCO, Japan, and the US). CERN made it possible to set up and sustain investment in high-energy physics research that any single European country would have regarded as unsustainable over such a prolonged period of time. The pooling of country-specific resources allowed single countries to share the considerable risks and uncertainty inherent to fundamental innovative research. Its collaborative effort has yielded remarkable successes, including two most notable discoveries: the invention of the World Wide Web, invented at CERN 35 years after its inception, and the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle, announced on 4 July 2012. CERN scientific leadership spans various domains, including superconductivity, magnets, vacuum, radio frequency, precision mechanics, electronics, instrumentation, software, computing and Artificial Intelligence. CERN’s technologies have generated significant societal benefits, including advancements in cancer therapy, medical imaging, autonomous driving with artificial intelligence, and environmental applications of superconducting cables.

I think it’s important to present CERN as a virtuous and successful example of European cooperation. For long-term, high-cost projects, it’s clear that efforts can’t be purely national. CERN’s example shows that it’s possible to set common goals, share costs and risks, pool expenses (also helping countries through specific moments of difficulty), and share results and benefits. The box continues:

The Large Hadron Collider has propelled CERN to global leadership in particle physics – a mantle that has shifted from the US to Europe – and it stands as CERN’s flagship facility. One of CERN’s most promising current projects, with significant scientific potential, is the construction of the Future Circular Collider (FCC): a 90-km ring designed initially for an electron collider and later for a hadron collider. Chinese authorities are also considering constructing a similar accelerator in China, recognising its scientific potential and its role in advancing cutting-edge technologies. If China were to win this race and its circular collider were to start working before CERN’s, Europe would risk losing its leadership in particle physics, potentially jeopardising CERN’s future.

We often forget that supremacy in the world of science, and particle physics in particular, was the domain of the United States for much of the second half of the last century. Only a combination of events (the cancellation of the SSC project, the end of operations at Fermilab’s Tevatron, and the continuous progress at CERN—moving from the SppS to the LEP and then to the LHC) shifted the center of particle physics to Europe. Today, CERN is, in fact, the world center (not just European) for this discipline, and the positive consequences for Europe—which hosts, finances, and supports it—are significant. These range from the economic returns for European industries (about 90% of what European states invest in CERN projects returns to their economies in the form of services and supplies requested and paid for by CERN and its projects) to technological growth (the same industries that benefit economically also learn to develop technologies they otherwise wouldn’t have a reason to produce—pure research is, by definition, a driver of innovation!) and education (thousands of students pass through CERN and its projects every year, whether for a thesis, PhD, or internship—not all of them will stay in research, but what they learn will stay with them as professionals).

But maintaining the world’s center of particle physics in Europe (with all its implications) is by no means guaranteed. China is on a rising trajectory that includes scientific development, evidenced by the CEPC project, which is the “its circular collider” mentioned in Draghi’s report box. Chinese colleagues are highly motivated to beat CERN to build the accelerator that will succeed the LHC. CERN and Europe, on their part, are progressing with the FCC project. Building it quickly and competitively with the Chinese project is not only a matter of scientific leadership but also of collaboration models.

This week, I was in Paris for the third ECFA workshop, the European Committee for Future Accelerator, where I spent three days discussing the progress of FCC feasibility studies (and other possible alternatives, which I personally don’t believe in much). A Chinese colleague presented the state of the CEPC project and candidly answered questions about the organizational structure to be expected if the project goes forward. He was quite clear that we should forget about an open and collaborative model like CERN’s: CEPC will primarily be a Chinese enterprise, with at least one exclusively Chinese experiment, a second that will be only partly international, and strict rules on who will have publication priority. It seems clear to me how dangerous this path is: whether the next accelerator after the LHC is in Europe or China isn’t just a question of distance and ease of access, but also (and primarily) of the democratization of science and the broader benefits for the global population. If FCC doesn’t happen (for economic reasons or unfounded scientific or environmental objections, which we’ll discuss later), Europe will condemn itself to scientific irrelevance, and failing to recognize this (I’m speaking mainly to colleagues with lukewarm or even opposed positions) is short-sighted and dangerous.

I’ll conclude with Mario Draghi’s recommendation from the report, which I fully endorse:

Increase joint investment in world-leading research and technology infrastructure. Research and technology infrastructure is essential for ground-breaking R&I, and often serves as a focal point of R&I ecosystems. They connect academia and RTOs with the industry, enable the business valorisation of breakthrough research and are a magnet for talent. We have already discussed the remarkable returns from the creation of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and emphasised that the future of CERN is at risk due to China’s progress in emulating one of CERN’s most promising current projects, the Future Circular Collider (FCC). Refinancing CERN and ensuring its continued global leadership in frontier research should be regarded as a top EU priority, given the objective of maintaining European prominence in this critical area of fundamental research, which is expected to generate significant business spillovers in the coming years.

However, the example of CERN is not unique. There is a clear need for scale when developing globally competitive state-of-the-art infrastructure, whether it is single-site (as seen in the case of the European Southern Observatory) or distributed infrastructure (as seen in the case of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking). To achieve the appropriate scale, there is a need for pooling resources from different sources: EU funds, national funds and private investment12. An accelerated process and faster selection are necessary to create more new ground-breaking infrastructure spanning Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) and technologies. The focus should also be on technology infrastructure, which benefit companies in developing and testing new products and services.

And, to be clear: given my age and the timeline of these projects, it’s unlikely that I will personally see the FCC in operation or participate in the analysis of its data. That will be done, if all goes well, by the students of my students. But imagining the future, even if we won’t witness it ourselves, is part of our responsibility.