Dear Colleagues in EP,

The year 2018 started with a big shock for us. The tragic death of Ferdi Hahn has concerned us deeply. Ferdi was Deputy Department Head of EP, a close colleague and good friend for many of us. Please see his obituary in this newsletter.

The year-end technical stop is now ending and the LHC and all experiments successfully completed their foreseen upgrade and maintenance programs. The beam is already back in the injector machines, and by the time this newsletter goes online we probably have seen the first collisions in the LHC already. All signals are green for the final production year of Run 2!

This newsletter features again several interesting articles covering many aspects of work within our department, but also news from experiments outside CERN.  Don’t miss the interview with Pascal Lamy, Chairman of the High Level Group on maximizing the impact of European research and innovation programs. You can also find a summary of the first EP workshop on R&D for future experimental technologies, and a summary of the recent Moriond conference.

Enjoy the reading.

Manfred Krammer

EP Department Head