
                        CINP Activities Report FY2015
                       Garth Huber, Executive Director

1) Membership
This is the first year that did not show growth in membership.  While since
April 1, 2015 there were 10 new members (5 faculty and 5 associate), indicating
the continued interest of the community in the CINP, this was offset by 8
associates who did not renew their 3 year memberships (some left the field and
no longer eligible, or unable to contact) and the loss of 2 faculty (one death
and one retirement).  Please encourage your grad students and PDFs to join and
contribute to the activities of the CINP.
Current membership: 70 faculty and 43 associates (113 total).

2) Subatomic Physics Long Range Plan (LRP)
As many of you are aware, this was a year of very significant CINP activity in
support of the LRP.  I would like to thank the Chairs of the Scientific Working
Groups, who put a lot of effort in helping gather the community input and
helping draft an excellent CINP Brief.  I believe our efforts in support of the
nuclear physics community were recognized by many members of the LRPC and our
aspirations largely taken into account in their document.

3) Representation and Input to Various Agencies
- CINP is a community representative at ACOT and GH attended two meetings at
  TRIUMF in the last year.
- CINP+IPP presented the joint document on the Context of Subatomic Physics 
  research at Canadian universities at the SAPES fall policy meeting on 
  November 3, 2015.  This document cannot possibly replace the information
  SAPES received in their former site-visits.  Nonetheless, SAPES found the
  document to be extremely useful.  We expect to revise this document this fall.
- CINP+IPP were asked by Compute Canada to update the joint white paper on High
  Performance Computing needs, which is taken into account by them in planning
  the locations and types of infrastructure to support.  The revised document
  was submitted on Feb 25, 2016.
- On Feb 26, 2016 GH gave input on behalf of the CINP at a joint NSERC-CFI
  discussion to increase coordination of review and decision making on large
  subatomic physics projects.  The fact that the two agencies are now talking
  face-to-face on issues like this is a very positive development.
- NSERC Large Projects Day.  The CINP made an in-camera presentation to 
  SAPES on March 6, 2016.
- Ottawa Meetings.
  - March 7/16: GH and Roney had a set of meetings following large projects
    day.
    - met with Gilles Patry and Guy Levesque (CFI) to further discuss the
      coordination of review and decision making between CFI and NSERC, and get
      their perspectives on future Federal Government funding for basic
      science research and large international projects.
    - met with Elizabeth Boston (NSERC) re. the upcoming Discovery Grant 
      fund allocation exercise, the future of Group Grants for subatomic
      physics, the loss of funding for CMC, and revisions to the PGS-M program.
  - we were unsuccessful to arrange a meeting with Kirsty Duncan, Minister of
    Science, due to her other commitments that week, and we will try again to
    meet with her or her staff during the CAP Congress.
- the CINP remains an observer at NuPECC.  However, due to financial pressures 
  we did not attend any meetings this year.  We intend to attend on meeting
  this coming year and give a short presentation on behalf of the CINP.

4) Conference Support
There has been sustained interest in conference support from the CINP in the
last year.  5 conferences were funded in the last year:
- Symposium on Symmetries in Subatomic Physics 2015
- International Conference on Hard and Electromagnetic Probes of High-Energy
  Nuclear Collisions 2015
- CUPC 2015
- Direct Reactions with Exotic Beams 2016
- Precision Radiative Corrections Workshop 2016

5) CINP Undergraduate Research Scholarships (URS)
For 2016 the CINP had a third competition for undergraduate summer research
scholarships.  As announced in the recent newsletter, the scholarships were
evaluated by a commitee consisting of Board Member Jean Barrette, and non-Board
members Barry Davids and Jason Donev.  It was more difficult than usual to find
members able to serve on the selection committee, either due to conflicts of
interest or other commitments.
- 11 scholarships were received, which is down by 2 from last year.
- of these, the committee decided 8 were worthy students who could make good
  use of a scholarship.  Due to improvements in the application procedure, the
  committee was able to easily reach a consensus.
- scholarships were awarded to the top 5 students, but 2 students declined
  their awards, and they were given to the top 2 alternates.
- now that the URS program has run successfully for the last 3 years, it seems
  an appropriate time to review and make adjustments if necessary.  This will
  be raised for discussion at the AGM in Ottawa.

6) WNPPC and CUPC Student Travel Awards
The CINP continued its practice of previous years to give $500 awards to
encourage students to speak on nuclear physics topics at these conferences.
As announced in the CINP newsletters, selection committees were struck to
select the recipients, and 4 awards were given for each conference.

To encourage a large Canadian contingent at the upcoming APS-DNP meeting in
Vancouver, at its May 3, 2016 meeting the Board approved a similar $500 grad
student travel award program for this meeting (one time only).

7) Member outreach
- Zisis Papandreou oversaw a significant upgrade of the CINP web-server
  software and made a number of improvements, including:
  - rotating picture gallery on the front page
  - private members area for CINP Brief submissions and other information not
    intended to be publicly-available
- 2 newsletters were circulated in November and April
- various emails to the membership on important announcements
