Baltic Sea Award to Lars Börjesson for initiating ESS
Professor Lars Börjesson, President of the ESS Steering Committee, has received the 2012 Baltic Sea Award for initiating the European Spallation Source project in Lund/Copenhagen.
The award ceremony took place Monday evening at the 14thBaltic Development Forum Summit in Copenhagen. The Award was presented to Lars Börjesson during the BDF Summit gala dinner with the motivation “for initiating the European Spallation Source in Lund/Copenhagen”.
- I am deeply honoured by this Award, said Lars Börjesson in his thanks-speech. There are many fathers to the ESS in Lund; maybe I am the grandfather, but many others have also been driving-forces in the project. ESS was started as a true bottom-up project by committed scientists.
Lars Börjesson is the President of the ESS Steering Committee, where the 17 ESS Partner Countries are represented. He was the initiator of the inaugural meeting of the ESS Scandinavia initiative meeting in October 2000. He is a professor at Chalmers University, leading a research team in condensed matter physics, and is the former Main Secretary for Research Infrastructure at the Swedish Research Council. He is also the Chairman of the Board of the MAXIV Laboratory, a high-brilliance synchrotron light source to be built south of ESS.
- ESS is a good example of the fact that it is possible to match bigger and more resourceful countries if you are smart and able to pool resources. If we set clear priorities in this part of Europe, we can attract leading researchers and have the best research facilities in the world, said Michael Svane, Director at Danish Industry in his announcement speech.
The Baltic Sea Award was established by Baltic Development Forum in 2007 in order to highlight and encourage positive progress in the Region. Last year’s winner was Professor Arjen Hoekstra for his pioneering work on the Water Footprint concept, and in 2008, the Award was given to Finland’s President Tarja Halonen.
The Baltic Sea Award is assigned to individuals or organisations that have made an extraordinary contribution to Baltic Sea Region development, capitalized on competitive advantages in the region in a new and innovative way, or fulfilled similar criteria.
For more information, please contact:
Lars Börjesson, Chairman ESS Steering Committee, lars.borjesson@chalmers.se, 46 (0)70 753 53 07
Marianne Ekdahl, Communications Officer Press & Politics, marianne.ekdahl@esss.se, 46 (0)46 888 30 66
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. Sweden and Denmark will co-host the ESS and cover 50 percent of the 1,4 B€ investment costs and 20 percent of the operating costs together with the Nordic and Baltic states.
The European Spallation Source ESS AB is a public limited company, today owned by the Swedish and the Danish states. 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 a large number of research institutes, universities and laboratories around the world. Construction is expected to start in 2013, the first neutrons to be produced in 2019 and the facility to 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.
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