It was an honour today for the ILL to receive the visit of five consulate officials from Lyon. Management took pleasure in presenting the Institute’s activities to these VIP representatives from some of the Institute’s Associate and Scientific Member countries:
• For Germany: Ms Dorothee Heidorn, Consul and Mr Max Maldacker, Consul General
• For Italy: Mr Alberto Bertoni, Consul General
• For Poland, Ms Joanna Kozińska-Frybes , Consul General
• For Spain: Ms Juana Gil Fernandez, Director of the Institute Cervantes and Mr Manuel Rodriguez Castellano - representing Don Pablo Benavides Orgaz, Consul General
• For Switzerland: Mr Beat Kaser, Consul General
From left to right: Mr Walter, Mr Kaser, Mr Maldacker, Mr Schober, Mr Bertoni, Ms Kozińska-Frybes, Ms Gil Fernandez, Ms Heidorn and Mr Rodriguez Castellano.
Credits: Serge Claisse
Our guests were welcomed by the ILL Director, Helmut Schober, who gave a talk highlighting the all-round excellence of the ILL’s performance, which over fifty years had been generating outstanding science for society. He highlighted in particular the ILL’s philosophy of European collaboration which had been informing the Institute’s business model since its inception. A series of recent graphics demonstrated the ILL’s continuing capacity to attract an international user community of some 12000 neutron scientists.
Ms Cabeza presents SALSA, the advanced neutron strain analyser, and the determining role it plays in analysing stress in industrial metallic components.
Credits: Serge Claisse
Mr Schober also illustrated, with a selection of case studies in healthcare and energy, the ILL’s main scientific mission, the generation of pertinent contributions, both fundamental and operational, to key societal areas.
The visit continued with a tour of the experimental facilities, under the guidance of some of ILL’s international instrument scientists. The ensuing discussions covered the involvement and requirements of the German, Italian, Polish, Spanish and Swiss scientific communities, and also the role of the ILL within its own complex ecosystem. This was illustrated by the numerous collaborative projects that drive the Institute’s relationships, whether at the local scale in its interaction with its EPN campus neighbours, GIANT and the University Grenoble Alpes, or at European and international level.
Mr Farago presents WASP, one of the most recent instruments of the ILL’s instrument upgrade programme, currently under construction.
Credits: Serge Claisse
On leaving the guide halls, the visitors were invited to enter the reactor building. The reactor was in operation providing neutrons for science, and the group was able to admire the characteristic blue glow caused by Cherenkov radiation traversing the reactor pool.
From left to right: Mr Bertoni, Mr Kaser, Mr Schober, Ms Kozińska-Frybes, Ms Gil Fernandez, Ms Heidorn in the reactor building
Credits: Serge Claisse
Leaving the ILL, the delegation crossed the site for a guided tour of the ESRF, ensuring themselves a comprehensive overview of Grenoble’s large-scale European research facilities.