1020003

For the first 5 years of INTEGRALs operational life the scientific Core Programme included a keycomponent that was regular scans of the Galactic Plane. These led to a wealth of discoveries of new sources and source types a large fraction of which were highly transient. These discoveries can certainly be considered one of the strongest results from and legacies of INTEGRAL. From AO-5 onwards these regular scans were discontinued and this resulted in a significant drop in the discovery rate of new systems in and around the plane of our Galaxy. In AO8 however a multiyear proposal to reinstate the scans was approved and the programme is still on going in AO9. We propose here to continue the Galactic Plane Scans as a Key Programme throughout AO10 and AO11 to regularly monitor known systems as well as to dramatically enhance the chances of discovering new systems. This will allow a rapid response to bright events and a detailed study of faint transients and long term activity. Such a programme will be of high value to a very large fraction of the high-energy astronomy community stimulating science immediately and furthermore contributing greatly to the INTEGRAL legacy.To this aim a total of 3 Msec (1 in AO101 and 2 in AO11) of observations is necessary to cover theplane with regular scans every orbit excluding the central zone that will be covered by the GalacticBulge monitoring programme (should that programme be accepted) and any other region studieddeeply in other proposals. We suggest that in order to maximise the engagement of the scientificcommunity the observations should be made public immediately. The team will make as it is alreadydoing through AO8-9 the scw-resolution IBIS and JEM-X light curves (in two energy bands) and perrevolution mosaic images publicly available through the web as soon as possible. Any interesting source behaviour that emerges from our observations will be announced prompt [truncated! Please see actual data for full text]