Description of Expert Groups

The Expert Groups (EGs) represent areas in which initiative proposals will be evaluated. This can include, but is not limited to: how likely a given initiative is to achieve its stated goals in the EG’s area of expertise; the extent to which those goals represent needed scientific or technological progress; how the given initiative advances US leadership and relates to the global context; and the technical feasibility of the initiative.

EGs will enumerate new scientific opportunities and gaps in their area, building on findings from previous reports. If significant opportunities or gaps are not addressed by the submitted proposals, the EGs should solicit initiatives to address those gaps.

EGs are open, and all community members are invited to participate in one or more EG. Members can join throughout the process, but are encouraged to establish their interest early in order to fill and define the scope of each EG. EGs are led by program committee (PC) members, and may be broken into smaller sub-groups to facilitate the evaluation of initiatives. EG membership is not limited to members of the US fusion energy sciences community.

Written reports from EGs, including evaluations of initiative proposals, will be the responsibility of the PC members, based on input from the EG members. The PC member leading the EG is responsible for ensuring a transparent, fair, and impartial process, and that the written reports are an accurate representation of the consensus view of the EG members. EG members should direct concerns over fairness and impartiality to the co-chairs.

EGs are not expected to solve deficiencies with proposals or to perform research or engineering studies to assess or advance the basis of a proposal. Rather, when an EG finds a deficiency, or finds a need for additional modeling or design for an assessment to be made, the EG should ask the advocacy group to address those issues to the extent feasible. EGs are encouraged to suggest ways for advocacy groups to strengthen their proposals.

Participation in EGs does not preclude participation in advocacy groups. PC members who participate in advocacy groups should recuse themselves from writing evaluations of that advocacy group’s proposals, and should deputize another EG member for that purpose. PC members should act to ensure that discussions of proposals are not dominated by advocates of those proposals.