Page 115 - ILL Annual Report 2019

MORE THAN SIMPLY NEUTRONS
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Catalysis and
Chemistry
In 2019 PaNOSC’s partners drafted a new data policy framework to make scientific data produced at Europe’s major PaN sources fully compatible with FAIR principles. The framework will be finalised in 2020 and then submitted to the partners. In order to ensure the proper implementation of FAIR data, PaNOSC is working to establish a useful
set of metadata and design an extensible query interface
to enable searches with these terms. The six partners are committed to implementing FAIR principles in their data catalogues to allow searches across the catalogues of all the facilities involved. The existence of a federated data catalogue will give access to other services, as well as to software for data analysis and simulation which will be developed as part of the project. The ultimate aim is to provide a portal offering each facility access to remote data analysis services, allowing users to analyse experimental data through remote desktops and Jupyter notebooks.
InnovaXN is a five-year Doctoral Programme initiated in 2019 by the ESRF and the ILL. It brings to innovators with neutrons and synchrotron X-rays an exceptional training opportunity for 40 PhD students whose research will be driven by pre-competitive R&D, in close collaboration
with an industrial partner. This will provide a unique cross academic-industry science setting, secondment opportunities and society-relevant research, and training the future key researchers able to tackle major research and societal challenges by exploiting the academic-industry interface.
In November 2019, the InnovaXN scientific review board selected 20 projects out of the 60 received from European industry and their partners. The approved projects cover a wide range of research fields such as chemistry, catalysis, aerospace, automotive and consumer products (see figure 2). Recruitment of students occured in February 2020.
The League of advanced European Neutron Sources (LENS) is a strategic consortium of European neutron sources that aims to act as guide and advocate for the European neutron user community. It will promote neutron science as a fundamental component of European scientific research and innovation.
LENS unites the European neutron sources under a single banner. Under its charter it aims to ‘facilitate any form of discussion and decision-making process that has the potential to strengthen European neutron science via enhanced collaboration among the facilities’. Other facilities may join the League in the future; several neutron facilities are interested to join LENS as observers or members.
LENS was officially launched on 26 March 2019 at the General Assembly and Executive Board meetings in Liblice, Czech Republic. The Director of the ILL, Helmut Schober, was elected LENS Chair, with the Director of the UK’s ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, Robert McGreevy, elected Vice-Chair. The signing ceremony was followed by a public celebration in the presence of some 80 government representatives as well as national representatives of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), the European Commission and the wider scientific community.
LENS met again on 22–23 October 2019, at the ILL, for meetings of its five working groups and the LENS Executive Board; these were followed by the second General Assembly, chaired
by Helmut Schober. At these meetings, the working groups and leaders of the different member facilities, in consultation with the European Neutron Scattering Association (ENSA), decided
on the pilot activities to be performed. Work in progress was presented for the first time to the organisation as a whole.
The pilot activities proposed demonstrates the collaborative spirit of the organisation. It includes strategic contributions to health, climate and the environment, food and energy, and materials research with neutrons. Technical collaboration on neutron technologies is also planned, as is work on data management and analysis. Other issues will also be pursued, such as closer cooperation concerning the organisation of the LENS neutron centres, new forms of access for academia and industry, the exchange of best practice, training and management.
Metallurgy
Renewable Energy and Energy Storage
Agriculture & Food Construction Materials
Consumer products
Aerospace and Automotive
Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnologies
Figure 2
Distribution among Industrial sectors of the 20 accepted InnovaXN PhD projects
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