The NExT Institute

Member of the SEPnet Partnership

[SEPnet]

New connections between Experiment and Theory

About the Institute

We will soon be at a cross-road in High Energy Particle Physics. A new and exciting era is about to begin with the arrival of data from the experiments on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The rapid and accurate interpretation of this data will point the way to a higher level of understanding of the fundamental interactions of matter and forces as well as possibly paving the way to follow towards an underlying grand unified theory. To achieve all this, a new kind of collaboration between theorists and experimentalists is required. The NExT Institute will encourage just such close interactions.

Bubble Chamber 1 Bubble Chamber 2

The NExT Institute was created by the High Energy Physics (SHEP) group at the School of Physics & Astronomy of University of Southampton and the Particle Physics Division (PPD) at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), now part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). (Here you can find the old webpages.)

The original proposal for the NExT Institute is contained in this document. The signatories were Dr S Moretti and Prof CT Sachrajda from SHEP plus Dr CH Shepherd-Themistocleous and Prof WJ Womersley from RAL-PPD.

In 2008 the NExT Institute expanded to include the Particle Physics group at the Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL) and both the theoretical and experimental Particle Physics groups at the University of Sussex. This followed the approval by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) of funding for 12.5 million pounds, to bring together, promote and sustain physics provision in six departments in the South East of England through the South East Physics network (SEPnet), from which the NExT Institute secured a grant in excess of 1.5 million pounds over 5 years, including a sizable contribution from the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC). This generated 5 permanent positions, each of which will be held jointly between theory and experiment and by pairings of two amongst the four nodes. In addition, the enlarged Institute will put in place a new international visitor programme as well as a novel graduate school (PhD and MSc degrees), which will involve mixed (theoretical and experimental) training and supervision, networking across all nodes, student placements at the experiment locations (such as CERN) and in industry, videolinked delivery of seminars and graduate lectures, annual workshops and a final graduate conference. (The NExT Graduate Committee membership is found here.)

Meetings at the NExT Institute

The last NExT Physics Meeting took place on 12 May 2010 at RHUL. See here for the full programme.

The inaugural NExT meeting (iNExT), open to the UK and overseas community, will take place at the University of Sussex during the days 23 & 24 September 2010.

Permanent positions available at the NExT Institute

Five NExT Fellowships/Lectureships were recently advertised: see here for the original announcements. All such positions, plus in fact an additional one, have now been filled: see the related news item.

Post-doctoral positions available at the NExT Institute

There are none open at the moment, but if you are interested in a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant (PDRA) position please send a CV, a research statement and three letters of recommendations to us at any time.

Post-graduate positions available at the NExT Institute

Two NExT PhD Studentships to start research between October 2010 and January 2011 are now available, one based in Sussex and one in Southampton.

Seven NExT PhD Studentships were recently advertised: see here for the original announcements. All such positions have now been filled: see the related news item.

EuroMaster positions are also tenable within the NExT Institute, see here for information and application procedures.

Visiting positions available at the NExT Institute

A NExT visitor programme linked to the RAL Centre for Fundamental Physics (CfFP) exists: contact us if you are interested in spending some time in Southampton, RAL, RHUL and/or Sussex.

Other Opportunities

Lots of information and a series of useful links to external funding schemes that may enable you to come and join us is found here.

Director: Prof. S. Moretti
Deputy Director: Dr. C. H. Shepherd-Themistocleous
NExT Steering Committee: Current Memberships