European Spallation Source - ESS (Press review)

Italy and 16 other countries renew their agreement to build the ESS – European Spallation Source, the world’s most powerful neutron source.   

 

Trieste. Italy and 16 other countries renewed their Memorandum of Understanding to participate in the pre-construction phase for the ESS – European Spallation Source. The signing ceremony took place at Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste, during the meeting of the EES Steering Committee which concluded this week.
 
The EES – the result of a collaborative effort among mainly EU countries – will be the world’s most powerful neutron source and will equipe Europe with the most advanced multi-disciplinary tool for materials research, with applications ranging from the biomedical field to superconductor research and environmental and energy technology.
 
Representing the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities, and Research at the signing ceremony was Caterina Petrillo, Director of the Department of Physics of the University of Perugia and the ESS Steering Committee’s Italian delegate. “With the renewal of the Memorandum of Understanding, which was first signed in 2010, we aim to strengthen the active participation of member countries and set the stage for the international agreement to build the ESS source in Italy. Researchers from Italy’s leading institutions, research centres, and universities have long been collaborating in building components for the accelerator and the neutron source, and in designing advanced tools for the spectroscopic analysis of materials.
Italy’s presence among the member countries is also a tribute to the excellence of our researchers in this sector, and provides meaningful opportunities to produce advanced technologies involving the Italian private sector as a whole”.
 
The ESS - European Spallation Source will be located in Lund (Sweden) and is expected to open in 2019. Intended as a key element for the development of Europe as a whole, it has enjoyed since the planning stage the active participation of Sweden, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Switzerland.
 
Italy participates, and will continue to do so, with a major institutional and industrial contribution involving Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste, the National Research Council (CNR) and the National Institute for Nuclear Physics.
 
“This commitment – commented Carlo Rizzuto, Chief of Elettra – is a fundamental occasion to build, together with the other partners, the future of Europe in as concrete and high-quality a manner as possible and with state of the art infrastructure at our disposal”.
 
Colin Carlile, CEO of the European Spallation Source, said, "We were very please to be able to meet in Trieste. Elettra, like ESS, was a greenfield project. It serves as a great model for our organization." 
 
When asked about Italy's role in ESS, Carlile said, "Italy plays an important role in ESS - not only for neutron research , but also in the construction. Italy has world leading accelerator labs and companies and we would like to see Italy play an assertive role”.
Last Updated on Tuesday, 08 January 2013 16:44