The European Committee for Future Accelerators (ECFA) and its restricted board (RECFA), presently chaired by Prof. Paris Sphicas, organise regular visits to CERN member states to evaluate the activities of the high-energy physics community in each country (overview of activities, funding, R&D, young researchers, computing, outreach, etc.).
The Belgian HEP community had the pleasure of welcoming the RECFA visit this year on Friday, September 12th, 2025 (open session, full day) and Saturday, September 13th in the morning (closed session).
We were honoured by the presence of Fabiola Gianotti, CERN Director-General, and Joachim Mnich, CERN Director for Research and Computing.
The event took place in Brussels at the Hotel Le Plaza. The agenda included presentations from the funding agencies by Véronique Halloin (FNRS) and Hans Willems (FWO), an overview of HEP activities in Belgium, the CMS experiment and its upgrade, detector R&D efforts, non-collider physics at CERN, and Belgium’s contributions to nuclear physics, including the MYRRHA project. Related fields such as neutrino experiments, astroparticle physics, and gravitational-wave research were also covered, as well as Belgian activities in theory and phenomenology.
The open session concluded with presentations from young scientists, as well as discussions on outreach, education, and computing for HEP.
The full agenda and presentations are available at the following Indico link:
https://indico.iihe.ac.be/event/2267
It was an intense day. The RECFA feedback was very positive, describing HEP in Belgium as an “exceptionally dynamic and well-organised community, highly engaged both nationally and internationally. The discussions were stimulating and productive, and we were deeply impressed by the breadth and quality of Belgium’s contributions to high-energy physics (HEP), theory, accelerator and detector R&D, and related sciences.”
The event was organised by the Belgian ECFA representatives (Nick van Remortel (RECFA), Didar Dobur (UG), and Barbara Clerbaux (ULB)) together with the funding agencies FNRS and FWO.
More pictures are available here :