New actions by the Swedish LHC Consortium

1. New actions by the Swedish LHC Consortium • Open Access Publishing of LHC results • Nobel Symposium on first LHC results • Financing of SweGrid for LHC analysis • VR funding of Swedish participation at LHC Tord Ekelöf Uppsala University

2. Open Access (OA) Publishing of LHC results - The current primary problem with publishing in paper journals is that the subscription costs have increased so much that certain research institute libraries has stopped subscribing to certain journals, leading to that the researchers at these institutes do not have access even to some of their own publications, let alone to other publications in their field. - It has been estimated that the publication costs can bereduced by an order of magnitude by electronic publishing on the web only, i.e. by stopping to print and distribute publications on paper. Tord Ekelöf Uppsala University

3. Open Access publishing - Open Access implies that published results are accessible on the web to all withno cost, neither to the author, nor the reader. CERN is proposing that the necessary peer reviewing and administration of the publishing will be made, also in future, by the current publishing houses (Nuclear Physics B etc.), which shall however stop printing and distributing HEP publications on paper. The financing of this web publishing will be provided by an international “Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics” (SCOAP3) and thus not, as till now, by subscription charges to the institute libraries. - The Board of the Swedish LHC Consortium has discussed the option of Sweden joining SCOAP3 and has decided to strongly recommend that Sweden does join as this will be the only guarantee for that we all in the LHC collaborations, once LHC starts up, have free access to all published results from LHC research. Tord Ekelöf Uppsala University

4. Open Access publishing - This requires currently that Sweden sign an “Expression of Interest to Join SCOAP3”. The total cost of web publishing of Particle Physics articles is estimated at 10 MEuro. Sweden’s author share of this publishing is 0.8%. Sweden would thus be requested to contribute 88 000 Euro/year to the SCOAP3 Consortium budget. This is estimated to be 10 times less than what the Swedish libraries are current paying forthe subscriptions charges forPhysical Review D, Physics Letters B, Nuclear Physics B, Journal of High Energy Physics, European Physical Journal, 10% of Physical Review Letters and 25% of Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physical research A. - The LHCK cannot see that the transition to the SCOAP3 publication scheme would imply any impediment for anyone to publish freely new scientific results. At the same time it is obvious that the SCOAP3 scheme greatly improved the possibilities for everyone to access, in an convenient way, all particle physics publications. Tord Ekelöf Uppsala University

5. Nobel Symposium on LHC results • The LHCK has proposed to the Nobel Symposium Committee that a 4-day Symposium on early results from the LHC be organized by LHCK in the Autumn of 2009. • The proposal is to invite some 40 internationally leading scientist active in the LHC program to overview what new particle physics phenomena have possibly been observed at LHC by the time of the Symposium and to discuss the possible physics interpretation of these phenomena from different perspectives. • The order of 15 younger Swedish scientists will be invited to attend the Symposium as observers. Tord Ekelöf Uppsala University

6. Financing of SweGrid for LHC analysis • The research funding authorities of the four Nordic countries have agreed to set up a Nordic Data Grid Facility (NDGF), the first task of which is to connect and coordinate compute resources at the 8 national computer centers in the Nordic countries to form a (“virtual” or “distributed”) Tier1 center for LHC Grid Computing (LCG). • There are ca 10 Tier1 centers in the world to handle the processing of all LHC data. The average contribution of compute resources to this analysis is thus 1/10=10%. He overall hardware investment of the Nordic countries in the LHC research program represents some 4% of the world investment. It has been judged that the financing of the Nordic Tier1 must be on the level of at least 6% of the total world financing of Tier1s in order for the Nordic Tier1 to have a sufficient critical mass. Tord Ekelöf Uppsala University

7. Financing of SweGrid for LHC analysis • LHCK has applied in 2006 to the Infrastructure Committee ((KFI) of the Swedish Research Council (VR) for investment and operations funds that correspond to ca half of the 6%, in total ca 44 MSEK for the three years 2007-2009 (24 MSEK investment and 20 MSEK operation). Of these KFI has currently approved only 15.2 MSEK (12 MSEK investment and 3.2 MSEK operations) • These funds are now used to provide funding of the Swedish share of the Nordic Tier1/Tier2 equipment and operations during 2007 but already during 2008 the approved fundswill not be enough to provide all of the Swedish share of the build-up and operations financing of the Nordic Tier1/Tier2. • Sweden/VR has not signed the LCG Computing Memorandum of Understanding and the full financing of next years costs has not been approved. LHCK urges VR that a solution to this problem be found very soon. • The good news are that, in spite of these funding difficulties, LHCK has currently ordered, in collaboration with SNIC, three Tier3 clusters of 50 processors each to be set up at local computing centers in Lund, Stockholm and Uppsala for use by the LHC physics groups only. These Tier3 clusters should be in operation early next year. Tord Ekelöf Uppsala University

8. VR funding of Swedish participation at LHC • The Swedish LHC Consortium was founded in 1998 and federates the five Swedish LHC research groups in Lund, Stockholm and Uppsala. One important activity has been to formulate and submit investment fund requests to VR and KAW for LHC detector and computing equipment on the level of, in total, 150 MSEK during this period. • Last year VR decided that all fund requests from the LHC groups, also those regarding travel and operation and even research positions, should be prioritized by the LHCK Board within a certain overall budget frame of about 18 MSEK that the VR has set aside for the Swedish LHC activity. • The LHCK Board (the Board members are Kerstin Jon-And, Hans-Åke Gustafsson, Bengt Lund-Jensen, Paula Eerola and Tord Ekelöf, i.e. the main grant holders for the Swedish LHC groups) will meet 3 October 2007 with the VR to discuss this prioritization of the applications handed in in April 2007. LHCK will also discuss more general questions with VR regarding CERN (like next DG, general financing of CERN…) the same day. Tord Ekelöf Uppsala University

9. New actions by the Swedish LHC Consortium • Open Access Publishing of LHC results • Nobel Symposium on first LHC results • Financing of SweGrid for LHC analysis • VR funding of Swedish participation at LHC Tord Ekelöf Uppsala University