Initial guidelines for a social cost-benefit analysis of the FCC programme

A fully-fledged Social Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) of one of the Future Circular Collider Conceptual Design Report’s (FCC CDR) scenarios would require making assumptions on several key variables relating both with the costs and benefits generated by future research infrastructures (RI) over a very long time-span. Presenting results of such a comprehensive analysis is well beyond the scope of this report. In the same vein, it is important to stress that results of a CBA are independent of the scientific utility of a RI, and that a CBA cannot be used to influence the ranking of different RI based on their discovery potential. The aim of this report is thus methodological. We sketch some guidelines for designing a CBA of the FCC program and summarize the timeline and the cost estimates of different FCC scenarios.