The Oshu City ILC Liaison Council (chair: Masaki Ozawa, mayor of Oshu) held a seminar on August 8th on the latest developments of the ILC at the Oshu branch office in Esashi.

There, Koichiro Shige, director at the Iwate Prefectural Bureau of ILC Promotion, gave a presentation to around 30 local residents.

He talked about how the ILC was moving forward both domestically and internationally in 2019-2020. “We are working parallel to the development of two different plans in order to get the ILC placed within: domestically, we have the Master Plan (by the Science Council of Japan) that will be decided in February 2020, and internationally, there is the next European strategy for particle physics which will be established in May 2020.” Should the ILC be realized, he demonstrated data that showed that around 7,000 researchers would arrive in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures seven years after construction begins. He explained the need to improve on the healthcare system and other systems that would serve foreign residents.

Director Shige said, “Initiatives are moving forward step by step that aim to realize the ILC. I hope to move things forward while the prefectural government, city governments, and citizens share their ideas together.”