Swiss Gravitational Wave coordination Group (SGWG)

during the meeting Board 2026-01 (11 February 2026) the CHIPP Board has voted in favor of the

Endorsement of the Swiss Gravitational-Wave coordination Group

The gravitational-wave science community in Switzerland has grown rapidly in recent years, and the level of involvement in technological activities and other infrastructure-related developments has fundamentally changed. This includes a significant approved role in the LISA space mission, a significant proposed role in the Einstein Telescope construction, and potentially the role of host state for a very long baseline atomic interferometer.

It is important that technological activities in these complementary projects are coordinated, and know-how is transferred between projects.

The Swiss gravitational-wave community crosses traditional disciplines, with a roughly balanced representation from CHIPP, CHAPS, and researchers affiliated with neither entity. It is of great importance that these different groups can effectively communicate and work together, properly representing the interests of the full community, and ensuring that consistent messages are conveyed in the appropriate community roadmaps and other such documents.

The SGWG was conceived to address these challenges, and was independently suggested by SERI as a part of the submission of the Einstein Telescope to the Swiss Roadmap for Research Infrastructures. The SGWG proponents made the conscious decision to avoid a legal entity: the intent is to bridge the communities, not supplant them. Within CHIPP, all activities of relevance to the SGWG would remain embedded within the context of Pillar 3, just as they are now.

Minutes will be taken during SGWG meetings, which can be distributed to the CHIPP Board. The SGWG would be an official body to ensure cross-community communication, to coordinate large-scale Swiss gravitational wave projects, and that CHIPP can request action from on topics related to gravitational wave science. CHIPP will be one of the two parent legal entities above the SGWG, and thus would retain the right to define their SGWG Coordinator (Article 3.1) and unilaterally dissolve the SGWG (Article 6.2).