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The workshop on Scattering and Complementary Techniques took place on 16th-18th December at the ILL Chadwick Amphitheatre. This workshop, co-organized by ILL and ESRF scientists, represented an important step to keep high the momentum on the Partnership for Soft Matter initiative, after the signature of the Memorandum of  Understanding between ILL and ESRF on November 27th.

The aim of the workshop was to gather potential Associate Partners from universities and other research institutes from member countries and discuss the scientific agenda of the partnership as well as possibilities for external fundings. The meeting was very well attended (the more than 90 participants were above expectations and registrations had to be closed in advance...) despite the short notice and the time of the year so close to a holiday period. A further confirmation of the strength of a community that at last proposal round has been the strongest at the ILL in terms of beam-time request and allocation (cf. statistics for College  IX compared to other colleges).

The meeting was opened by the two research directors of ILL and ESRF who gave for the first time a joint presentation of the two facilities. This was followed by up-dates on the status of the initiative from the two PSCM responsibles, T. Narayanan and G. Fragneto, and a talk from one of the members of the ILL Scientific Council, Frank Schreiber (Tübingen, D), on challenges in molecular and soft matter. This first session, on wednesday afternoon, set the scene of the meeting.  The following contributions by 24 speakers from all over Europe gave a clear confirmation of the high level of interest of the user community in the initiative. Many suggestions of collaborations were made and the workshop was successful in creating already links among many of the participants. During the round table the networking aspect of the PSCM and its potential impacts were emphasized. Moreover, participants agreed that such activities should be coordinated by the local scientists.

Expressions of interest to join as Associate Partners were given by a number of scientists. The complementarity of neutrons and synchrotron radiation was well documented, with many users showing research done at both facilities and presenting many projects for future collaboration. Much time was devoted to discussion that was always very enthusiastic and rich of positive comments and suggestions.

A strong point was made by many users that it is important that the ILL and ESRF push for in-house research, absolutely vital to keep the instruments and sample environment in  their best shape, and provide the appropriate level of investment to the initiative also in terms of staff. Participants reiterated the need for a critical number of researchers to make PSCM effective. The community welcomed with enthusiasm a suggestion to the ILL and ESRF to co-finance four PhD students for the PSCM. Adrian Rennie (Uppsala, SE) summarized the meeting and welcomed comments from the participants on the importance of the user community to stay informed and the wish that in the future similar meetings are repeated regularly.


Giovanna Fragneto

January 2010
on behalf of the organizing committee