German Science Council Recommends TESLA

The German Science Council, an agency of the German government, assessed the TESLA project planned by the research center DESY in cooperation with international partners to, be worthy of support under certain conditions.

The assessments of nine appraised large scale facilities for basic research in the natural sciences have been published on Monday, November 18. "We are very glad that the Science Council changed its first positive statement about TESLA to the German federal government to a recommendation, and we are looking forward to hear the upcoming evaluations" said Professor Albrecht Wagner, chairman of the DESY Directorate, "since we have complied with the conditions posed by the Science Council".

The Science Council listed two conditions in its first evaluation statement: to detail the project proposal for the superconducting electron-positron linear collider with respect to international funding and cooperation, and to present a revised technical project proposal for the TESLA X-ray laser version with a separate linear accelerator. In October, DESY sent the corresponding papers to the Science Council. These papers will influence the further evaluation. The final decision of the federal government regarding the TESLA project is expected in 2003.