ESS employees today start a well-being walk to Japan
As part of the ambition to become a sustainable research centre, ESS has launched a well-being campaign for the ESS employees. The latest initiative. launched today, is a walking competition, where the goal is that the staff will walk all the way from Lund to the sister research centre in Japan, the Japan Proton Accelerator Complex J-PARC.
Until now, much of the ESS sustainability activities have been focused on the energy solutions, but the time has come to develop sustainable ideas in other areas of ESS current and future activities as well:
- Since the long-term sustainability of the construction and operation of ESS is dependent on the health and well-being of the ESS staff, a well-being campaign has been launched at the ESS during the spring, says Colin Carlile, ESS Director-General.
- The “Let’s Walk to J-PARC!” competition is a fun and relaxing way to encourage the well-being of our employees, and contribute to the ESS being a good working environment.
The wellbeing campaign includes physical exercise, lectures and tournaments, and the purchase of company bikes with the ESS logo. The campaign also intends to increase staff awareness of individual activity levels, and find ways in the daily life to increase them.
Now the whole ESS staff will compete, and have equipped themselves with pedometers, counting every step they take. The goal is that the staff jointly reaches J-PARC in Japan at the end of four weeks time. The team which walks the longest distance will receive nice prizes, and in addition, eternal glory!
For more information, please contact:
Colin Carlile, ESS Director-General. E-mail colin.carlile@esss.se, Tel. 46-(0)46-222 83 02
Marianne Ekdahl, Communications Officer Press & Politics. E-mail marianne.ekdahl@esss.se, Tel. 46-(0)46-222 83 89
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 up to 100 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. At least 17 European countries 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 international research institutes and laboratories. 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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