Page 167 - Neutrons for Sciences and Society

Chapter 6: The start of research activities and the arrival of the British
had a definite importance when the British government made its decision two years later. The visit also had consequences for the EMBL, as will be evident when I write more of the creation of the EMBL outstation at the ILL.
A new visit of the SRC representatives took place on
2 December 1970. The discussions focused mainly on the scientific programmes, with contributions from Mitchell (British programmes), Allen (polymers), and White (dynamics of liquids). It was an opportunity for us to appreciate the progress made by the British in certain fields, notably for studying polymers. Another visit took place on 25 and 26 February 1971. For the first time the subject of a collaborative contract was addressed seriously, and Maier-Leibnitz gave a presentation on the matter at the following meeting of the Steering Committee. His impression was that the SRC no longer expected a positive decision on the construction of a British reactor, and was consequently interested in a long term participation in the ILL. However the Council of the SRC met on 21 April 1971 and recommended to the Minister to build a reactor in the UK; the request was the subject of an article in the Financial Times on 1 June. They asked at the same time to be able to use 10% of the reactor resources of the ILL.
On 19 June 1971 Mitchell wrote a document listing the experiments that SRC scientists wished to perform at the ILL, and the relevant instruments. For all these it was proposed to buy 10% of the operating time of the reactor. To clarify the discussions the Steering Committee appointed a sub-group of Greifeld, Loosch, Creyssel and Horowitz, to be responsible for conducting the
158