ESS Appoints Helmut Schober Next Director General
The European Spallation Source (ESS) Council has named Helmut Schober the next Director General of the next-generation materials research facility under construction in Lund, Sweden. Helmut Schober, currently Director of the European research centre Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) in France, will join ESS on 1 November.
“I am happy that the ESS Council has appointed Professor Helmut Schober as the next Director General of ESS,” says Beatrix Vierkorn-Rudolph, Chair of the ESS Council. “Helmut Schober has a long-standing experience as neutron scientist and a deep knowledge in leading a European scientific facility. He will lead ESS in the transition from a construction project into an international leading research facility.”
After two decades at the globally leading neutron source ILL, Helmut Schober became its Director in 2016. He was the founding Chair of the League of advanced European Neutron Sources (LENS), of which ESS is a member, and is since 2020 also Chair of the European International Research Organisations forum (EIROforum). Schober is a prominent figure within the European research community and very familiar with the ESS project, as a former member of the ESS Scientific Advisory Committee.
Professor Schober has a PhD in Physics, and worked as a researcher at the University of Mainz and at the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe in Germany, before joining the ILL in 1994. His research focused on the spectroscopy of functional materials, covering a wide domain from nanostructures to liquids and glasses.
“I am honoured to be appointed ESS Director General. ESS will be an absolutely necessary building block for preserving Europe’s long-standing, global leadership in neutron science. Its unprecedented capabilities will enable unique scientific insight into materials that will contribute to solving many of the pressing challenges our society is facing,” says Helmut Schober. “Together with the ESS staff and our partners I will deploy all my energy to deliver a vibrant facility at the earliest possible date.”
Europe has a long tradition of excellence in neutron science, and ESS is of strategic importance for European research and innovation to enhance and consolidate its top global position in material science. ESS will significantly outperform other similar facilities in the world and provide new opportunities for science through its unprecedented brightness and state-of-the art instruments.
Helmut Schober will join ESS at an important time in the project, when civil construction is coming to an end, and the installation works of technical equipment and commissioning of parts of the facility will be intensified. A major milestone at ESS in 2021 will be the commissioning of the first part of the linear accelerator, which is expected to take place after the summer.
Photo: Cedrine Tresca
More information:
Julia Öberg, ESS Press Officer, +46 721 79 23 11 julia.oberg@ess.eu
About ESS
The multi-disciplinary research facility European Spallation Source (ESS), based on the world’s most powerful accelerator-based neutron source, is currently under construction in Lund, Sweden. ESS will provide unique research opportunities within materials research for thousands of scientists from all over the world, enabling scientific breakthroughs in research related to materials, energy, health and the environment, and addressing some of the most important societal challenges of our time. ESS is a research infrastructure with 13 member countries. ess.eu
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