Co-operation Agreement between the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment of the Republic of Cuba (CITMA) and CERN concerning The Further Development of Scientific and Technical Co-operation

In the framework of the CERN collaboration with Latin America, co-operation agreements have been established with Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Peru. They have made possible a growing participation by Latin American particle physicists in the CERN programme, which has important potential for the future. The Cuban particle physics community is highly motivated and relatively advanced, both scientifically and technologically, since many of its members have been trained in installations of the former Soviet Union, many of which now participate in CERN's cooperation with Russia. In addition, Cuba has a good number of experienced computer scientists. A group from the Cuban Institute CEADEN (Centro de Aplicaciones Tecnológicas y Desarollo Nuclear) has recently been accepted unanimously into the ALICE collaboration, with agreed contributions to off-line software and Grid middlewave. Additional Cuban contributions to show controls, data acquisition and testing electronics for the Silicon drift dectector of ALICE are currently under discussion. Cuba has about 15 particle theorists and about 25 experimental physicists and engineers, who work mainly at CEADEN, ICIMAF (Instituto de CIbernética, Matemática y Física), the Higher Institute of Science and Nuclear Technology (ISCTN) and various universities, in particular at La Havana University. Cuba has also some accelerator experts which are currently installing a Microtron built in the former Soviet Union, as a Regional facility promoted by UNESCO. Several individual Cuban experimental physicists have previously been participating in the CERN programme through Groups from Member States such as Italy, and their community has good contacts with groups from other Latin American countries, such as Mexico. Additionally some Cuban theorists have made successful visits to the CERN Theory Division, which have been useful in establishing topics of common interest between Cuba and CERN. These also include informatics and medical applications of detector and accelerator technologies as well as LHC physics. In view of the significant potential contributions from Cuba, mainly to the LHC experiments, and in the framework of strengthening the Latin-American collaboration with CERN, the Committee of the Council is requested to approve the establishment of a Co-operation Agreement with the Ministry of Science and Technology of Cuba, to be implemented by specific Protocols with the above mentioned Institutes and Universities.