March 2018

Breakthroughs in accelerator science and technology for basic research are often translated into applications that have the potential to address key economic and societal issues while engagement with the industry is crucial for developing the key components of future accelerators. In this issue you can read a report from the "Accelerator - Industry Co-Innovation" workshop to identify the opportunities and research challenges for next-generation accelerators, the most promising avenues for new R&D efforts and a path forward to stronger coordination between basic and applied research. 

Continued innovation in accelerator science also depends on inspiring and educating the next generation of young scientists. This is precisely what the Joint Universities Accelerator School (JUAS) has been doing each year since 1994, celebrating last year its 25th anniversary. We also feature a story about the "Tactile Collider", developed by our colleagues from Cockfort Institute, a novel educational tool that can make the exciting science of accelerators accessible for visually impaired (VI) school children. You can also find out why "Antimatter Matters" and watch a stimulating video developed by the AVA (a Marie-Curie training network) researches. Finally, you will find a story about young researchers from the HiLumi and FCC projects, interested in innovation and entrepreneurship, who participated in a two-day course jointly organized with CERN's IdeaSquare and Knowledge Transfer group.

As always you can also read about the latest technological developments, including the first successful tests of a novel MgB2 superconductign coil, a novel scheme for the Target Dump Injection (TDIS) to ensure safer operation at the higher luminosities of HL-LHC and more advanced control systems required for future accelerators. 

I hope that you will enjoy reading our new issue.

Panos Charitos
Editor-in-Chief