Within the European astronomical community, a widespread consensus has emerged that one or more powerful new wide-field multi-object spectrographs are needed to follow up current and planned space and other surveys (including GAIA).

ING is establishing a European consortium to develop such a spectrograph, WEAVE, for the prime focus of the William Herschel Telescope. WEAVE will be able to take spectra of up to 1000 objects simultaneously, within a 2-deg field of view. First light is envisioned in 2016.

Design work for the new prime-focus corrector, and for the spectrograph, is now in-hand, and the consortium has submitted to STFC a 'statement of interest' for their consideration.

Further details about the project can be found on the WEAVE web pages:

http://www.ing.iac.es/weave/