The European Spallation Source is Inviting Potential Partners to Contribute to the Construction Phase of the Project
The European Spallation Source has released a “Call for Expressions of Interest” to research institutes and other organisations to participate in the project with in-kind contributions. The call broadly encourages potential partners to contribute in many ways, usually in the form of technical components, or work.
With this call, ESS starts the process of identifying and agreeing with those partners who will participate in the project. Already, a large number of research institutes and laboratories have contributed to the design work and planning of the Pre-Construction work. Many of those partners will continue in the Construction Phase, and many others will join.
“ESS is preparing to moving into Construction,” says Jim Yeck, the ESS CEO. “This is an important step in defining concretely who will contribute to the project and how ESS will be built.”
The call is directed towards research institutes, universities, laboratories, companies, or combinations of these, coming from current ESS Partner Countries or countries that wish to join the ESS.
“This is a very inclusive process at this stage,” says Allen Weeks, Head of Communications at ESS, is responsible for the preparing the call. “We encourage any potential partner with relevant experience and expertise, to respond to this call, so it is very open.”
In-kind contributions may include technical components and/or material, work, services, hardware or software. The total project value is estimated at € 1,843 billion. Of that amount, more than 40% is estimated to come from direct in-kind contributions. Contributions are expected for the accelerator, target, scientific instruments, and control system.
“The in-kind aspect of ESS is a very important piece of the funding structure – this is a scientific collaboration sourcing Europe’s leading experts,” says Yeck. “The member countries want to know what their intellectual contributions will be as well as their cash contributions.”
The contributions will help form the basis of each Partner Country’s total contribution to the construction costs of ESS. After the respondents have been evaluated, then the discussions for specific collaboration agreements will begin. Those agreements will be a evaluated by a special committee set up by the 17 member states to evaluate the proposals. This is consistent with other large research infrastructure projects that rely greatly on on-kind contributions.
The European Spallation Source will be a world-leading science facility based on the world’s most intense neutron source. It will also be the home of one the world’s most powerful proton accelerators. Construction is expected to continue until nearly the end of the decade with instruments coming on line already in 2019.
Potential contributors to the project can out how to get involved at:
http://europeanspallationsource.se/eoi
For more information, please contact:
Marianne Ekdahl, Communications Officer Press & Politics, ESS. E-mail marianne.ekdahl@esss.se. Tel. 46 (0)46 888 30 66
Allen Weeks, Head of Communications, ESS. E-mail allen.weeks@esss.se Tel 46 0)46888 31 52
ESS IN SHORT:
The European Spallation Source – the next generation facility for materials research and life science
The European Spallation Source (ESS) will be a multi-disciplinary research laboratory based on the world’s most powerful neutron source. ESS can be likened to a large microscope, where neutrons are used instead of light to study materials – ranging from polymers and pharmaceuticals to membranes and molecules – to gain knowledge about their structure and function. ESS will be around 30 times better than existing facilities, opening up new possibilities for researchers in for example health, environment, climate, energy, transport sciences and cultural heritage.
ESS is an intergovernmental research infrastructure project, and it will be built in Lund in southern Scandinavia. Currently 17 European countries are Partners in the ESS project, and will take part in the construction, financing and operation of the ESS. The Partner Countries are: Sweden, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom.
The European Spallation Source ESS AB is a state-owned limited liability company, today owned by the host countries Sweden and Denmark. ESS AB is currently working on finalizing the ESS technical design, planning the future research at ESS, preparing for construction, and planning the future international ESS organisation. This is done in collaboration with around 60 Partner Laboratories, research institutes, and universities around the world. During 2013, the ongoing Pre-Construction Phase goes over into Construction, and the ground-break is planned for 2014. The first neutrons will be produced in 2019 and the facility will be fully operational around 2025.
ESS is expected to support a user community of at least 5000 European researchers and will have great strategic importance for the development of the European Research Area. Near by there will be complementary laboratories, such as the synchrotron MAX IV in Lund and XFEL and PETRAIII in Hamburg.