±¬×ߺÚÁÏ

These past weeks, with four top-level meetings in a row, our Organization is once again passing through an extremely intense phase. All of us have been heavily engaged in preparing high-level documents and presentations for the advisory boards and for the fifth ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ Council that will meet on 18-19 November—so much so that we overlooked a minor but nonetheless historic milestone: our second anniversary.

It was on 24 October, 2007 that the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ formally entered into force and that a small team of 150 people raised its glass to celebrate the "start of a unique science adventure." Since that date we have grown—we are now more than 400 people—and I am not exaggerating when I say that we have achieved a lot.

We have signed off on 28 Procurement Arrangements for major machine components, covering one-third of the total in-kind contributions for the project adding up to EUR 1.5 billion. After some "teething pains," a full suite of performance measurement systems and tools is in place today that will help us to steer this big ship called ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ.

As we are still looking into the feasibility of the overall project schedule, we have nearly finalized the 2009 Project Baseline documentation built from the extensive review of the 2001 ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ design. This exercise translated into a huge amount of work, and the last six months have been brutally intense for all of us. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who contributed to this great team effort.

This project has come a long way and I am proud to say that ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ no longer only exists on paper— ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ is tangible! With prototypes undergoing endurance and heat tests, Domestic Agencies signing their first contracts with industrial suppliers, and facilities under construction for the production and winding of the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ magnets in China, Japan and Russia, we have definitely moved on to the manufacturing era.

As I look out of my office window here in the Headquarters Building that was inaugurated almost a year ago on 20 November, I can see the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ construction site. It used to be a forest; more than two million cubic metres of earth were moved to level the 40 hectare platform for ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ, a platform that was immaculately prepared and delivered on schedule by our partner Agence Iter France. Also, the 100-kilometre road between the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ site and the port in Fos-sur-Mer is almost ready for the arrival of the first components. It is now up to us, the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ and the seven Members, to bring the platform to life and start the actual construction of ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ.

With ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ, we have established a completely new model for international collaboration and I'd like to repeat the words I spoke two years ago: "It remains our challenge to show that outstanding talent coming from many different nationalities can fuse to create a truly dynamic workforce."