The third update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics got under way in June 2024, when the CERN Council established the Strategy Secretariat and the European Strategy Group (ESG). Chaired by Karl Jakobs, former chair of the European Committee for Future Accelerators (ECFA), the Secretariat includes Hugh Montgomery (chair of CERN’s Scientific Policy Committee), Paris Sphicas ( ECFA chair) and Dave Newbold (chair of the European Laboratory Directors Group - LDG).

Proposed timeline for the European Strategy Update process

The ESG is mandated to take into consideration:

• The input of the particle physics community;
• The implementation of the 2020 Strategy update;
• The accomplishments in recent years, including results from the LHC and other experiments/facilities worldwide, progress in the construction of the High-Luminosity LHC, the FCC Feasibility Study, and recent technological developments in accelerator, detectors and computing;
• The international landscape.

To inform the Strategy update, the ESG calls upon the particle-physics community across universities, laboratories and national institutes to provide input to the process in various forms and at various stages.

An Open Symposium, at which the community will be invited to debate scientific input into the Strategy update, will take place on 23 - 27 June 2025 at a venue to be determined by the Council in September 2024.

A “Briefing Book” based on the input and discussions will then be prepared by the Physics Preparatory Group (PPG, to be established by the Council in September 2024). The Briefing Book will be submitted to the ESG for consideration during a five-day-long drafting session which is scheduled to take place from 1 to 5 December 2025.