Denmark and Sweden plan to co-host the European Spallation Source

Sweden and Denmark will co-host the planned research facility ESS. The understanding means that the proposal to other European governments to participate in the ESS now will be presented as a joint Danish-Swedish undertaking.

The European Spallation Source will be the world’s most powerful materials and life science facility for neutron based research, and it could be built in Lund in southern Scandinavia. After half a year of negotiations, there is now an understanding between the Swedish and Danish negotiation teams to:

- co-host the ESS, if Lund is chosen as the site;

- set up an ESS Data Management Centre in Copenhagen, in support of the ESS facility in Lund. This Centre will be responsible for data management, computing and data analysis, software, computer simulations and remote access for scientists;

- promote the development of a Theory and Theoretical Modelling Group, that will enhance the scope and depth of scientific impact of ESS. Such a Centre would benefit from the being set up close to the ESS Data Management Centre and the Niels Bohr International Academy in Copenhagen;

- further strenghen the successful double-triple helix in the region, by involving universities, research institutes, innovation centres and businesses in the planning of ESS, in order to ensure a wide dissemination of advances in research and technology developed at ESS;

- further develop the Nordic-Baltic ESS Platform, aiming at reaching a 50 percent contribution from this region to construction costs, and at least 20 percent contribution to operation costs, including the contributions from Sweden and Denmark.

The draft agreement will be subject to political decisions by the Swedish and Danish governments.

- Öresund Region already have very fruitful cooperation within science and innovation, and the ESS will further strengthen cross-border R&D, comments Colin Carlile. Not the least since the Öresund Region has been a cradle of innovation in neutron methods and instrumentation, Director of ESS Scandinavia.

- It will be very beneficial to locate the ESS Data Management Centre to Copenhagen, where the Nordic Data Grid is located. Advanced research increasingly demand high-capacity computing, and the ESS will both benefit from existing ICT expertise in the Öresund Region and contribute to setting new standards within grid networking and computing.

The European Spallation Source – the next generation facility for materials research

The European Spallation Source (ESS) will be a multi-disciplinary research laboratory based upon the world’s most powerful neutron source. Neutron beams can be likened to large microscopes, where materials – ranging from polymers and pharmaceuticals to membranes and molecules – are studied to gain knowledge about their structure and function. The high precision instruments of the ESS will enable in-depth analyses under realistic conditions. The ESS will open up brand new possibilities for researchers in for example health, environment, climate, energy and transport sciences and cultural heritage.

ESS is an intergovernmental project that resembles CERN in Geneva. A number of countries have offered to host it. The decision on where to build the ESS is of current interest. It will be taken when those European governments that have an interest in building and running the ESS have created a coalition and entered into an agreement with the preferred host country. ESS Scandinavia - a consortium of leading universities, research institutions and regional bodies in Scandinavia - proposes that the ESS be located in Lund, Sweden.

In February 2007 the Swedish government offered to host the ESS and to cover about 30 percent of the 1,4 B€ investment costs and 10 percent of the operating costs. In June 2007 Lund University was commissioned by the government to establish a Secretariat for the planning, the building-up of competence and the recruitment of researchers in order to prepare for the construction of the ESS. Professor Colin Carlile, previous Director of the world-leading Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, was appointed as Director.

Negotiations on bringing the ESS to Lund are now underway. The Swedish government has appointed Mr. Allan Larsson, chairman of the Lund University board of directors and former Finance Minister, as Sweden’s chief negotiator. Right now the process of obtaining the necessary authorisation is progressing, as well as the technical preparations and the refinement of the design to site conditions in Lund. Building is expected to start around 2010, the first neutrons will be produced in 2018-19 and the facility will be fully operational after 2020.

ESS will support a user community of 5000 researchers and will have great strategic importance for the development of the European Research Area. Lund and the Malmö-Copenhagen region have excellent preconditions to attract leading scientists: several large universities, a broad research-based industry, high-quality infrastructure, an English-speaking population and world-class research capabilities in, among other areas, biotech and nano technology. Near by there will be complementary laboratories, such as the planned synchrotron MAX IV in Lund and XFEL and PETRA in Hamburg.

ESS Scandinavia will engage in the climate change strategies of the European Union and the Swedish government, and has adopted the goal that the ESS will be carbon dioxide neutral. This will be achieved by means of an energy conservation strategy, the use of renewable sources of electricity, and the reuse of excess heat through the Lund district heating and cooling system. ESS built in Lund will be the first large-scale scientific facility operating under this principle, and it will be a demonstration project for other future facilities.