Industry honoured

CERN has organised a day to thank industry for its exceptional contributions to the LHC project.

Lucio Rossi addresses CERN’s industrial partners in the Main Auditorium.

The LHC inauguration provided an opportunity for CERN to thank all those who have contributed to transforming this technological dream into reality. Industry has been a major player in this adventure. Over the last decade it has lent its support to CERN’s teams and participating institutes in developing, building and assembling the machine, its experiments and the computing infrastructure. CERN involved its industrial partners in the LHC inauguration by organising a special industry prize-giving day on 20 October.

Over 70 firms accepted the invitation. The firms not only made fundamental contributions to the project, but some have also supported LHC events in 2008 and the inauguration ceremony through generous donations, which have been coordinated by Carmen Dell’Erba, who is responsible for securing the sponsorship.

After a message of welcome from CERN’s Director-General Robert Aymar, Philippe Lebrun, Head of AT Department, Chief Scientific Officer Jos Engelen, and Wolfgang von Rueden, Head of IT Department, retraced the history of industry’s involvement in the LHC project, experiments and computing grid. Together with Lucio Rossi, group leader in AT Department, who chaired the conference, they underlined the extent to which the close collaboration between CERN, the institutes and industry have contributed to the project’s success.

During the years of construction, contributions by industry have been regularly recognised by prizes awarded by the LHC project management or the experiment collaborations. Reference was made to these past awards. In addition four new prizes have been awarded. The French firm Ineo has received a Golden Hadron award for its substantial contribution to the LHC interconnections. Ineo was also one of the chief sponsors of the ceremony. The Finnish firm VTT has also been honoured by the LHCb collaboration for its contribution to the RICH detector electronics. The firm has already received an award from the ALICE collaboration. The JINR’s Dubna experimental workshops have been presented with an award by ATLAS for their essential role in the construction and installation of the detector’s magnet system components. The firms Intel and Oracle have similarly been given awards by the IT Department for their contribution to the computing grid, presented to them at the Grid fest (see Bulletin No. 43-44/2008). In addition to these awards, a commemorative plaque has been inaugurated at the entrance to Building 40 to honour the firm Hamamatsu Photonics which played an outstanding role in various LHC-linked projects, in particular for CMS and ATLAS, and was one of the sponsors for the inauguration ceremony. Last but not least, a second plaque has been unveiled in the lobby area near the Main Auditorium to commemorate the exceptional contributions to the LHC made by 10 firms.