ESA's scientific review committee ranked LISA as the agency's highest scientific priority. The LISA community has decided to continue its collaboration as a self-funded and independent LISA consortium in order to prepare the strongest possible proposal for the next launch opportunity.
The consortium consists of a Consortium Lead supported by a Consortium Board, a Consortium Coordination Group, and working groups in instrument development, data analysis and science.
It represents the European states involved in LISA: Germany, Italy, France, UK, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, Hungary, Romania and the USA. The consortium is led by Prof. Dr. Karsten Danzmann, who chaired the former LISA International Science Team and is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute/AEI) and a professor at the Leibniz Universität in Hannover, Germany.
Besides preparing the science and the technology for the LISA mission, the consortium has strongly supported ESA's LISA Pathfinder mission (LPF). LPF has successfully demonstrated key technologies for measuring gravity in space for the first time, paving the way not only for gravitational wave detectors but also for next-generation Earth and planetary gravimetry.