By Doug Welch (McMaster), Ivana Damjanov (Saint Mary’s)
(Cassiopeia – Winter 2023)
We are pleased to provide the CASCA community with an update on the activities of the Optical-Infrared (OIR) Review Committee which was formed by CASCA during the first half of 2023 and which met for the first time in late July.
The full terms of reference (ToR) for the committee can be found here but we briefly remind everyone of key boundary conditions:
- The interval being considered is 2025-2035;
- The focus is on ground-based, international OIR facilities;
- VLOT facilities and plans are not part of this assessment;
- The plans and aspirations of early-career researchers (university faculty and research staff) will play a key role in the committee’s information-gathering and recommendations;
- The committee will provide recommendations to address the Gemini Assessment Point; and
- The recommendations of the committee will be available by the end of June 2024.
The membership of the committee is:
- Étienne Artigau, Université de Montréal
- Ryan Cloutier, McMaster University
- Allison Man, University of British Columbia
- John Ruan, Bishops University
- Simon Morris [External Member], Durham University
- Laura Ferrarese [Non-voting Member], NRC-HAA
- Kim Venn [Non-voting Member], ACURA representative
Since the beginning of October, the OIR Review committee has been meeting at two-week intervals To date, our primary tasks have been:
- Preparing a current list of early-career researchers;
- Designing and iterating on a survey to gather our initial data/feedback from early-career researchers and their current plans and aspirations; and
- Assembling external research context based on available international strategic plans.
We have also acquired:
- Canadian proposal, usage, and publication statistics for CFHT and Gemini for the last several years; and,
- A current list of HAA support projects that includes international OIR facilities.
Our early-career researcher survey will be circulated to individuals using a Google Form on or about January 10, 2024. Once those results are compiled, the committee will contact early-career researchers for individual or small group follow-up interviews.
The committee will meet with leadership of stakeholder observatories (e.g. CFHT, Gemini) to ensure that our understanding of developments at those facilities is current and accurate.
It is anticipated that the final report of the committee will recommend a small number of scenarios capturing the most promising avenues for maximizing competitive access to offshore facilities and instrumentation for Canadian researchers.