On 12 July 2019, Reynald Pain, director of the CNRS’s Institut national de physique nucléaire et de physique des particules (IN2P3), and Alexis Valentin, vice-president of research at Toulouse III-Paul Sabatier University (UPS), signed a letter of intent with the aim of creating a joint research unit (UMR) on the Toulouse university site, focusing on the scientific themes of IN2P3.
The new unit’s research activities will focus on theory, modelling, simulation, data processing and analysis. It will focus on two main areas: Study of the structure and dynamics of the atomic nucleus at the Large National Heavy Ion Accelerator (GANIL); Study of the Standard Model of particle physics and research into new physics at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Other research themes may also be developed in synergy with existing activities at the Toulouse site. “Toulouse is an important site from a scientific and technical point of view, with a modern university and a large number of students of an excellent standard, but with no scientific offerings in our field” (*) said Reynald Pain, Director of IN2P3. “It was important for IN2P3 to set up a joint research laboratory there” (**). Initially, and as soon as autumn 2019, the first CNRS researchers and ITAs will join the new establishing unit by mobility from other IN2P3 laboratories. They will later be joined by other staff. The aim is to create the UMR on 1 January 2020.
(*) « Toulouse est un site important d’un point de vue scientifique et technique, qui bénéficie d’une université moderne, avec beaucoup d’étudiants d’excellent niveau mais sans offre scientifique dans notre domaine. »
(**) « Il était important que l’IN2P3 s’y implante à travers la création d’un laboratoire mixte de recherche. »
