ICFA is pleased to announce the ICFA Instrumentation Awards. The Awards are bestowed annually to recognize exceptional contributions to instrumentation that has advanced the field of particle physics.
ICFA, the International Committee for Future Accelerators, a Working Group of the C11 Commission of IUPAP (International Union of Pure and Applied Physics) was created in 1976 to facilitate international collaboration in the construction and use of accelerators for high energy physics.
The ICFA Instrumentation Early Career Award recognizes achievements in instrumentation made at an early career stage by an individual, or group of individuals, that has the promise to make, or has already made, an advance in the field of particle physics. The early career stage is taken to be 15 years from the award of the Ph.D. or other terminal degree, properly accounting for career interruptions. The PhD date is the date that the PhD was awarded, not the date that the thesis was defended. The time that has elapsed since the PhD was awarded is calculated from the year that the nomination call is made. Accordingly, for the 2025 award nominees are eligible if the PhD was awarded in 2009 or later
The ICFA Instrumentation Award recognizes achievements in instrumentation by an individual, or a group of individuals, making an advance in the field of particle physics. This award recognizes either a technology development (for example the 2024 award recognized the development of MAPS, the 2023 award recognized the development of Micro Pattern Gas Detectors, and the 2022 award recognized development of advanced low-noise electronics instrumentation, in particular for liquid argon technology) or a multi-faceted contribution including a technology development and also one or more of the following: community organization, training, outreach or technology transfer. While past achievements form the main basis for the award, the potential for future instrumentation developments may also be considered.
Submission Process
Individuals or groups of individuals are to be nominated by Noon (Central European Time) October 15, 2024 at https://indico.cern.ch/e/ICFA_Instrumentation_Award. Self-nominations are not permitted. The nomination package must include the following:
- A nomination letter of not more than 10,000 characters;
- A biographical sketch or CV for each individual included in the nomination;
- A list of the most important publications pertaining to the nomination;
- At least two, but not more than three supporting letters of not more than 5,000 characters each. The supporting letters must be written by those other than the nominator.
Nominations will remain active for three years. A nominator may view their nomination made in a previous year at the sidebar option. "Edition 2022" nominations are no longer active. "Edition 2023 and Edition 2024” remain active. If a nominator wishes to update a previous nomination this requires the entire nomination be submitted to the 2025 cycle.
The particle physics community is diverse and global, so the nominees should reflect this. The nomination of women and other underrepresented groups in the particle physics community is therefore strongly encouraged.
Award Ceremony
The 2025 Award recipients will be invited to give a talk at the Vienna Conference on Instrumentation, 2025, held on 17-21 February, 2025, in Vienna, Austria. For the following two editions of the awards, the talk will be held at:
- Technology and Instrumentation in Particle Physics (TIPP), 2026.
- 17th Pisa Meeting on Advanced Detectors, 2027.
Review and selection process
The review committee for the 2025 awards will be a subset of the members of the ICFA Instrumentation, Innovation and Development Panel and potentially several external experts.
Change of contact point
After the shock and profound sadness caused by the sudden passing of Ian Shipsey, Chair of the ICFA Instrumentation, Innovation and Development Panel (https://icfa-iid.physics.ox.ac.uk ), the panel is reorganizing to carry out the award selection as planned .
For questions about the awards please contact Francesco Forti Francesco.Forti@pi.infn.it and Marcel Demarteau demarteau@ornl.gov
If you wrote to Ian recently, please write again to the new contacts, so the information is not lost.
