On December 7, the Linear Collider Collaboration (LCC), which heads the ILC project at an international level, held a panel discussion on the ILC during the LCWS conference being held in Morioka City.

The discussion was held as a joint plenary session so around 300 researchers attended. Dr. Lyn Evans (Director of the LCC) and six others spoke at the session.

The ILC will require enormous funds to construct, so Dr. Evans explained a strategy for staging the ILC – increasing the scope of the project through several different stages. Another remarked, “We must think about staging as a way to bring the cost down so that we can raise the chances the ILC will get made.”

The Japanese national government is currently deliberating on whether or not to host the ILC project in the country, but one challenge is the initial construction cost, which is estimated to be around 1.1 trillion yen.

The LCC will change to a new structure in January 2017. Prof. Shinichiro Michizono of KEK (Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Pref.) will become Associate Director for the ILC, and said, “We will deliberate on staging in addition to cutting costs through further research and development. We will work hard to realize the ILC in Japan.”