Large international collaborations are now the norm in physics research. But it can be difficult for young researchers to make the contacts needed to become known in the physics community outside of their home countries and establish themselves in their careers.

UNILHC was one of the EU-funded Marie Curie Initial Training Networks designed to support such early-stage researchers and help them improve their research skills, join established research teams and enhance their career prospects.

Much of the focus was on findings from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the high-energy particle accelerator that has been operating at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics near Geneva, since 2008. Widely known for the discovery in 2012 of the Higgs boson, a long-predicted fundamental particle that completes the ‘Standard Model’ of physics, the LHC has produced large amounts of data for theoretical physicists to work on.

Exchange visits

“The main research objective of the network was to propose theoretical interpretations for the experimental data coming from CERN and a diverse range of other observations in the Earth and in the sky,” explains Ignatios Antoniadis, the network coordinator.

“In particular, we wanted to identify new physical phenomena that cannot be described by the current Standard Model of particle physics and ultimately find a unified description of elementary particles and their fundamental interactions.”

UNILHC provided support for 37 early-stage researchers (mainly PhD students) and 7 more experienced researchers (mainly post-doctoral physicists) attached to 25 institutions organised into 12 network nodes.

The network organised four conferences, two summer schools and three training courses on science communication for the young researchers. A further 50 ‘peripheral’ meetings were partly funded by the network.

Above all, the programme allowed researchers to visit other institutions in the network for up to about a month. “Without UNILHC, they would not have had the opportunity to circulate among the network nodes and to be involved in the bigger European collaborations,” Antoniadis says.

“Their travel would be limited and since they are young they are not yet known in the community. Within the network they have the opportunity to travel a lot and become known, and most of them have no problem in finding jobs afterwards.”

Physics skills in demand

Over the four-year life of the network, the partners produced more than 1 400 scientific publications, 379 of them involving at least two of the partners. Network members also presented their results in more than 500 international scientific events (conferences, workshops and schools) all over the world.

But a longer-term benefit of UNILHC was the preparation of young researchers for their future employment, either in academia or in the private sector, by offering the necessary complementary skills in management and communication.

Most of the young physicists employed by the network have now found jobs in the participating institutes at the post-doctoral or faculty level, but some will eventually establish careers outside the academic world. The skills learned in their physics training – independence of mind, problem solving, and practical skills like computing – will stand them in good stead wherever they go.

As Antoniadis says: “High-level training of our researchers contributes to the excellence of European fundamental research, which is the base for future technology, strong industry and a healthy economy.”