The Technical Design Report Verification Working Group, part of MEXT’s Panel of Experts for the ILC, was reconvened due to changes made to the ILC project. They met at MEXT on January 30th for their first meeting since reforming. They will verify the cost of the project as well as whether or not current technology is adequate for building the project. They will gather their findings in a report at the end.

Twelve members attended to discuss the approval by the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA) in November to shorten the initial length of the ILC from 31 km to 20 km. The beginning of the meeting was open to the press, where researchers gave proof that this would reduce construction costs 40% from the initial estimation of 830 billion yen.

The working group met six times in 2014-2015. After this recent change in the ILC plans, it was reformed along with the Elementary Particle Physics Working Group. Their next meeting will be in March, but information on when they will release their report has not yet been made public.

Head of the working group, Hideaki Yokomizo (director of the Comprehensive Research Organization for Science and Society), said, “We will strive to understand more about the revised ILC plan and deepen our discussions as we put together our report.”