https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-025-02016-w
Review
CLIC readiness report
1
CERN, 1211, Geneva, Switzerland
2
Department of Physics, University of Oslo, 0316, Oslo, Norway
3
Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste S.C.p.A, AREA Science Park, Basovizza, 34149, Trieste, Italy
4
John Adams Institute, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
5
IN2P3, IJCLab, Paris-Saclay University, 91400, Orsay, France
6
University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, UK
7
University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
8
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
9
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
10
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
11
Shandong University, Jinan, China
12
Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
13
Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
14
University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
15
Helsinki Institute of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
16
CEA, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
17
Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, IJCLab, Orsay, France
18
LAPP, Université de Savoie, IN2P3/CNRS, Annecy, France
19
DESY, Zeuthen, Germany
20
DESY, Hamburg, Germany
21
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany
22
National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece
23
HUN-REN Institute of Earth Physics and Space Science, Sopron, Hungary
24
SpaceLab, Obuda University, Budapest, Hungary
25
The School of Particles and Accelerators, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences, Tehran, Iran
26
Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
27
Raymond & Beverly Sackler School of Physics & Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
28
INFN e Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Frascati, Italy
29
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, KEK, Tsukuba, Japan
30
University of Antananarivo, Antananarivo, Madagascar
31
Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
32
Nikhef, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
33
National Centre for Physics, Islamabad, Pakistan
34
AGH University of Krakow, Krakow, Poland
35
Institute of Nuclear Physics PAN, Krakow, Poland
36
Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
37
King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
38
Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
39
CELLS-ALBA, Barcelona, Spain
40
IFCA, CSIC-Universidad de Cantabria, Santander, Spain
41
Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid, Spain
42
Instituto de Física Corpuscular (CSIC-UV), Valencia, Spain
43
Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
44
Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, Villigen, Switzerland
45
Ankara University, Ankara, Türkiye
46
Department of Physics, Abant İzzet Baysal University, Bolu, Türkiye
47
Institute of Applied Physics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Sumy, Ukraine
48
University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
49
University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
50
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
51
Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
52
The John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK
53
University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
54
John Adams Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
55
STFC Daresbury Laboratory, Warrington, UK
56
Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, USA
57
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Newport News, USA
58
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, USA
59
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
60
Johannes-Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany
61
Nuclear Research Centre-Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel
62
DESY, Hamburg, Germany
63
SolidWatts, Pully, Switzerland
64
University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
65
STFC Daresbury Laboratory, Daresbury, UK
66
LAL, Orsay, France
67
University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
68
ETIT, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
69
ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
70
Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, CTU, Prague, Czech Republic
71
Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
72
Sapienza Universita, INFN, Rome, Italy
73
University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
74
Département de Physique Nucléaire et Corpusculaire (DPNC), Université de Genève, Geneva, Switzerland
75
EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
76
Omer Halis Demir University, Nigde, Türkiye
77
The Cockcroft Institute, Keckwick Ln, Daresbury, UK
78
Diamond Light Source, Harwell, UK
79
Imperial College London, London, UK
80
SolidWatts, Pully, Switzerland
81
European Spallation Source ERIC, Lund, Sweden
Received:
11
September
2025
Accepted:
30
September
2025
Published online:
9
December
2025
The Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) is a TeV-scale high-luminosity linear e+e− collider studied by the international CLIC and CLICdp collaborations hosted by CERN. CLIC uses a two-beam acceleration scheme, in which normal-conducting high-gradient 12 GHz accelerating structures are powered via a high-current drive beam. For an optimal exploitation of its physics potential, CLIC is foreseen to be built and operated in stages. The initial stage will have a centre-of-mass energy of 380 GeV, with a site length of 11 km. The 380 GeV stage optimally combines the exploration of Higgs and top-quark physics, including a top threshold scan near 350 GeV. A higher-energy stage, still using the initial single drive-beam complex, can be optimised for any energy up to 2 TeV. Parameters are presented in detail for a 1.5 TeV stage, with a site length of 29 km. Since the 2018 ESPPU reporting, significant effort was invested in CLIC accelerator optimisation, technology developments and system tests, including collaboration with and gaining experience from new-generation light sources and free-electron lasers. CLIC implementation aspects at CERN have covered detailed studies of civil engineering, electrical networks, cooling and ventilation, scheduling, and costing. The CLIC baseline at 380 GeV is now 100 Hz operation, with a luminosity of 4.5
and a power consumption of 166 MW. Compared to the 2018 design, this gives three times higher luminosity-per-power. The new baseline has two beam-delivery systems, allowing for two detectors operating in parallel, sharing the luminosity. The cost estimate of the 380 GeV baseline is approximately 7.2 billion CHF. The construction of the first CLIC energy stage could start as early as ∼2034-2035 and beam commissioning and first beams would follow a decade later, marking the beginning of a physics programme spanning 20-30 years and providing excellent sensitivity to Beyond Standard Model physics, through direct searches and via a broad set of precision measurements of Standard Model processes, particularly in the Higgs and top-quark sectors. This report summarises the CLIC project, its implementation and running scenarios, with emphasis on new developments and recent progress. It concludes with an update on the CLIC detector studies and on the physics potential in light of the improved accelerator performance. The physics potential includes results from the 3 TeV energy stage, which was studied in detail for the CLIC CDR in 2012 and the CLIC Project Implementation Plan of 2018.
E. Adli, G. D’Auria, N. Catalan Lasheras, V. Cilento, R. Corsini, S. Doebert, M. Draper, A. Faus-Golfe, E. Fraser Mactavish, A. Grudiev, A. Latina, L. Linssen, J.A. Osborne, Y. Papaphilippou, A. Robson, C. Rossi, D. Schulte, S. Stapnes, I. Syratchev, R. Tomas Garcia and W. Wuensch are Editors.
© The Author(s) 2025
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

