Present: J. Billowes, K. Blaum, P. Butler (chairman), R. Catherall, L. Fraile, S. Franchoo, M. Garcia-Borge, M. Huyse, A. Jokinen, B. Jonson (replacing T. Nilsson), M. Lindroos, D. Lunney, K. Riisager, P. Collier (P.T.), J. Lettry (P.T.)

Excused: A. Di Pietro, T. Nilsson

The meeting starts at 09.00 h

1. Introductory remarks by the chairman

The meeting is opened by the chairman who passes on the apology from T. Nilsson for his absence and welcomes B. Jonson as his replacement. The chairman also welcomes R. Catherall as the new ISOLDE Technical coordinator and the committee agrees that M. Lindroos should continue as an ex-officio member of the committee in his new role as ISOLDE New Projects Manager.

The committee is told that D. Lunney will be replaced as the French representative on the ISCC by S. Franchoo.

The chairman welcomes P. Collier (AB/OP) and J. Lettry (AB/ATB) to the meeting as representatives of the CERN AB Department.

2. Approval of the minutes of the 48th meeting.

After two small changes proposed by D. Lunney the minutes of the 48^th ISCC meeting are approved.

3. ATC-ABOC days

J. Lettry explains that the understaffing of ISOLDE was caused when two senior staff were also given responsibilities other than at ISOLDE. A discussion follows on whether or not certain experiments should be given priority when setting the ISOLDE physics schedule and if more flexibility could be employed to allow for target failure.

P. Collier explains that it was stated in the response from the AB department that ISOLDE was privileged to be the only running experiment during 2005 because it had been very expensive, with regards to both manpower and funding, to have only ISOLDE running.

P. Butler asks if action is being taken where the AB department leader had stated it was needed. P. Collier responds using the example of the inflector zone which has been closed for safety reasons and it, along with ISOLDE, will be included in the next CERN safety audit.

J. Lettry informs the committee that, due to new Swiss legislation, all targets have to be dismantled which is giving an even higher work load. He goes on to list the new responsibilities of people in his group:

• R. Catherall: ISOLDE Technical Coordinator
• E. Siesling: ISOLDE Hall Superintendent
• F. Wenander: REX-ISOLDE Superintendent
• M. Lindroos: New Projects and INTC matters

The committee is told by P. Collier that his PS Booster operation group has been reorganised and it now consists of 15 people which should help towards the improvement of communication between the CERN main control room (CCC) and ISOLDE. He explains that there will be a technician in the control room running the booster 24 hours a day, with a call out system for secondary assistance. A team of 5 people will be needed to provide this kind of cover.  He assures the committee that the technicians will be encouraged to get involved with the beam further into ISOLDE.

P. Collier informs the committee that he believes the manpower for ISOLDE should be increased to 7 people and that he will work towards this goal. M. Lindroos and the rest of the committee express their concern that no progress has been made on the future of

F. Wenander and D. Voulot.

Regarding the support for RILIS, J. Lettry explains that the physicist involved has three different jobs so he can only commit a certain number of hours to ISOLDE.

J. Lettry states that any funding or technicians that could be provided by the ISOLDE Collaboration would be of great assistance to the AB Department. He would like to have a meeting with ISOLDE once a year to discuss manpower and resources available for the following year and to determine the priorities.

The chairman states the committee’s appreciation of the AB response to the concerns at ISOLDE and will draft a letter of response to S. Myers, AB Dept. Leader. J. Lettry and P. Collier are thanked for their contribution to the meeting.

4. Technical developments and AB Department news (M. Lindroos/R. Catherall) (see overheads)

M. Lindroos reiterates the change of responsibilities at ISOLDE and then goes on to summarize this years major shutdown work. The improvements made to the organisation of the shutdown work are summarized and the committee is told how these changes helped towards the relatively smooth start-up in 2007.

M. Lindroos goes on to present the status of the Off-line separator upgrade, Minimove and the REX low energy stage. He presents the isotopes and elements run at REX so far and it is agreed that this list should be available on the ISOLDE website.

The technical R&D at ISOLDE is summarized. The committee is told that the tendering process for the solid state lasers is underway and that off-line tests of the RFQ Cooler are still underway with promising results. A meeting to discuss the installation of the cooler will be held on May 30th; the proposed installation date is now the beginning of October.

The chairman congratulates the ISOLDE teams for all the work done during the shutdown.

5. Scheduling and PH Department news (L. Fraile / K. Riisager) (see overheads)

L. Fraile summarises the accelerator schedule and the shift situation for 2007. He also tells the committee that this year’s start up was well planned and went smoothly.

The following points from the Physics Group are then covered:

• Buildings and infrastructure: Building 275 has been cleaned up and reorganised. The Solid State Lab. in building 115 is being extended. The mechanical workshop in building 115 has been reorganized and handed over from the AB dept. to the PH Dept.
• Safety structure: The CERN Safety Commission is being reorganised and ISOLDE, including Users will have to take on certain safety issues, e.g. Users may have to follow specific radioactivity handling courses. CERN is creating a risk register and K. Riisager has been asked to provide risk assessments for the local Physics group and the ISOLDE Facility by Friday 25^th May. He will report further on this issue at the next ISCC meeting.
• Fellows and Associates: The next selection meeting is at the end of May. ISOLDE has 5 very good applicants for Fellow positions and 1 for an associate position so the prospects are bright.
• Member States: Norway paid the membership fee for the second half of 2006, however the situation for 2007 is still unclear. Portugal has put in an application for funding for the ISOLDE membership fee while Greece has asked for information about becoming a member and Bulgaria has expressed interest in joining the collaboration.
• ISOLDE Newsletter: The Spring 2007 version of the newsletter has been emailed to users.
• Team and User registration: There is a new team structure for ISOLDE. The transition to the new structure should take place gradually during the rest of this year. The Users Office is preparing online pre-registration and contract extension. New Users are asked to pass by the ISOLDE secretariat at some point during their visit to CERN.
• Publications list: A preliminary version of the ISOLDE related publications list can be found on the ISOLDE website. In order to finalise this list input is required from spokespersons and ISCC members. Five PRLs from the ISOLDE Collaboration have been published already this year.
• EU: The EURONS report for 2005 has been approved so funds are now flowing again. Several proposals for activities involving ISOLDE in the I3 that will replace EURONS will be submitted. The EURONS/EURISOL week will be held from 17^th to 19^th September 2007 in Helsinki.
• MoU: There are still three missing signatures (Italy, Spain and the UK) but no problems are foreseen. The annexes of the MoU will be updated once a year at the November meeting.
   

6. Budget 2007 (K. Riisager)

K. Riisager informs the committee that there is no change in expenditure estimates for this year so the account balance remains the same. The committee is told that all 2006/2007 contributions have been paid except for that of France. It is noted that:

• The REX posts expenditure has been transferred to the AB department.
• CERN is committed to taking over the responsibility of REX-ISOLDE but has no commitment to specific posts.

The situation of the REX posts is then discussed by the committee.

A discussion follows about whether or not the collaboration could afford to fund an extra fellowship year for D. Voulot and the possibility of taking this cost under the umbrella of HIE-ISOLDE. M. Lindroos suggests that the ISCC chairman should meet the head of the AB Department to plead the cases of F. Wenander and D. Voulot.

K. Riisager will produce an overview of the resource problem which will be required for the resource meeting planned by J. Lettry for September 2007.

7. HIE-ISOLDE (P. Butler/M. Lindroos/K.Riisager)

M. Lindroos summarises the situation of the HIE-ISOLDE project. The ISOLDE Collaboration must now raise external funds before CERN will commit to contributing to the project. HIE-ISOLDE has been split into several sub-projects and various funding requests have been made in different countries. K.U. Leuven has raised 600kEuros towards HIE-ISOLDE development as well as funding for a Physicist/Engineer R&D post at CERN.

The Swedish Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation has awarded a grant of 2.4 million Swiss Francs to be used for the RILIS upgrade.

M. Huyse tells the committee that the CERN mid-term plan has been presented to the research council and ISOLDE operation should be approved until 2011. However, HIE-ISOLDE is part of ‘Theme 4’ and it is unclear when CERN will have money to invest in Theme 4 projects. This will definitely not be before 2010. Hence it is vital that as much money as possible is raised by ISOLDE so that there is more chance that CERN will agree to help fund the project. He adds that when the new CERN management takes over at the end of 2008 it is important that they are made aware of the situation of the HIE-ISOLDE project.

K. Riisager informs the committee that work on the common strategy document with GANIL is still on-going and that the Physics report for HIE-ISOLDE should be ready for printing in Autumn 2007.

P. Butler requests that the HIE-ISOLDE website be linked to that of ISOLDE. M. Lindroos suggest that a joint workshop between ISOLDE and GANIL could be planned for June 2008, while the committee agrees to K. Rissager’s suggestion that the next ISOLDE Workshop should be held in December 2007 and dedicated to HIE-ISOLDE.

D. Lunney announces that the SPIRAL 2 meeting will be held in week 48.

8. INTC matters (M. Huyse/ L. Fraile)

M. Huyse informs the committee that the INTC is considering requesting a status report from experiments that remain inactive for 3 years and if no response is received the experiments remaining shifts will be cancelled. Also, the INTC wishes to discourage multiple addenda, preferring instead that new experiments are submitted. Experiment spokespersons are encouraged to contact staff at ISOLDE about technical issues before submitting their proposals.

L. Fraile presents an evaluation and forecast of ISOLDE Key resources (see overheads) that he had presented to the INTC. A discussion follows on the future priorities and possibilities at ISOLDE. The committee notes that the main resource problem is RILIS but that hopefully, when the new solid state lasers are installed, the limits on RILIS use should be less strict.

The committee stresses that ISOLDE has a physics driven program and that it is hoped that resource problems will be resolved.

9. A.O.B.

• The committee decides that the ISCC should send out a call for applications for the post of ISOLDE Physics Group Leader as soon as possible with a deadline for applications of early September. The committee will select a candidate at its meeting in November and then CERN will interview the candidate.
• The committee thanks L. Fraile, whose contract finishes at the end of September 2007, for his work as ISOLDE Physics Coordinator.
• The next ISCC meeting will be held at CERN on Monday 12^th November 2007 at 09:00.

The meeting ends at 12:30h