Dear colleagues in EP,

I hope this message finds you all well. You have opened the last EP Newsletter of this year. At the same time, this is the last newsletter which appears under the auspices of the present EP management. After ten years serving as the EP Department Head I will hand over the responsibilities to my successor Giovanna Lehmann. She will start her term on January 1st.

Reflecting on these last ten years, I recollect how much has happened during the period from 2016 to 2025. Together with all of you we finished LHC Run 2 and moved into LS2. LS2 was an intense time, hampered by the COVID crisis, which came at the worst moment for the experiments. Despite the unprecedented difficulties we managed to make the upgrade of all the experiments a success. The following Run 3 already broke all records, clearly due to the exceptional performance of the LHC, but also due to the dedication and work of our EP community operating the experiments. Many exciting physics results have been published - too many to be listed here - giving us a much deeper and more precise insight in the world of particles and fields. I believe we are also well prepared to enter LS3 next year. Unsurprisingly, there are technical problems, which are the consequences of our ambitious, challenging and complex projects. The majority of the upgrade projects and the hundreds of items under development or already in production are proceeding well. This should not be overlooked when we naturally focus now on the remaining issues.

Over these ten years, the many other exciting experiments and facilities at CERN, i.e. ISOLDE, n-TOF, AD, NA Experiments, CLOUD, have also made great progress and have produced exciting physics results – again too many to mention here. Together we have completed experiments, founded new ones and kept the CERN diversity program alive and vivid.

Last but not least, I would like to mention the EP Strategic R&D for detector development. This program became a huge success and is now in its second phase. Results from EP R&D are mentioned at every conference on detectors in particle physics and neighboring fields and our program has become a reference in this field.

When I started my job as EP Department Head in 2016 I was aware that this is a great privilege, but I wasn’t expecting that it will become such a pleasure and joy. This is very much due to the excellent people in our department and in the EP community at large and the very positive spirit within the department. Thank you, and keep on like this!

In this issue of the EP newsletter, you will again find a nice selection of articles on many different activities in the department, covering progress of some of our smaller experiments, results from the LHC, new technologies and a very interesting interview with Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek. You may spend some nice moments reading these articles during the holiday break.

During the break enjoy your time with your loved ones, relax and look forward to another exiting year at CERN in 2026

Happy Holidays,

Manfred Krammer.