Project Kick-Off at JCNS: International Network to Ensure the Long-Term Success of the European Spallation Source
15 March 2019
Forschungszentrum Jülich is one of 15 international research centres taking part in a European project for the European Spallation Source ESS, which started with a Kick-Off Meeting in January. The three-year programme BrightnESS2, funded by the European Research and Innovation Programme Horizon 2020, aims to ensure the long-term sustainability of the ESS and its user community. On the 20 and 21 February, the Jülich Centre for Neutron Science (JCNS) hosted the kick-off meeting for one of the BrightnESS2 work packages in which Forschungszentrum Jülich is involved, for which it receives funding amounting to approximately € 250,000.
BrightnESS2 brings together scientific partners from eleven different countries and is based on the BrightnESS project, funded by the European Research and Innovation Framework Programme Horizon 2020, which began in 2015 and was successfully concluded in 2018. The follow-on project now shifts the focus from risk mitigation over to the long-term sustainability of the ESS and its community. This is supported by and is a result of a long-term sustainable and dynamic user community in neutron research along with a network of complementary facilities in Europe.
With a timeframe of 36 months and a budget of almost five million euros, BrightnESS2 aims, among other things, to ensure access to European neutron research facilities in a strategic and coordinated manner for user communities both within and outside Europe, and to support the management of the contributions from other partners (so-called “in-kind contributions”) for the ESS. Forschungszentrum Jülich is playing an active role in both of these work packages.
“A project such as the ESS with in-kind contributions from numerous countries and with a total value of around 600 million euros presents special challenges. As a result, project management is spread over more than 130 institutes working under very different conditions. Costs, the availability of resources, legal regulations and other conditions vary across countries. Nevertheless, everything has to come together in the end,” explains Dr. Andreas Wischnewski from JCNS. He manages the Programme’s office at Forschungszentrum Jülich, which is responsible for the coordination of German contributions to the ESS.
“During BrightnESS, our main task was to create efficient communication and administrative structures to minimize risks.” However, during BrightnESS2, Wischnewski’s team will primarily implement a documentation management system and a quality assurance plan, as well as working on the challenges related to CE certification compliance and the installations at the ESS in Lund, Sweden. “Our focus is on supporting the management of in-kind contributions to the ESS,” explains Dr. Tania Claudio Weber, who works within the framework of BrightnESS2 at JCNS.
Further work packages within BrightnESS2 aim to increase the innovation potential of the ESS and promote strategic industrial partnerships. In addition, BrightnESS2 intends to strengthen the position of the ESS as a global research infrastructure as well as its positive socio-economic impact. The participating European and South African partners should thereby significantly advance the worldwide development of neutron research and expand the European research sector.
The launch of BrightnESS2 comes at an important moment for European neutron research, which is currently undergoing dramatic change as some facilities have reached the end of their operational lifetime. The joint project will help maintain Europe’s position in the global research environment and also strengthen the network of research institutes using neutrons.
Further information:
Article: BrightnESS2 Kicks Off to Bring Together a Sustainable European Neutron Ecosystem