WIREDGOV

The UK neutron community, represented by senior members of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), gathered at the European Spallation Source (ESS) construction site in Lund, Sweden, for the ESS Foundation Stone Ceremony.

The ESS is one of the largest science and technology infrastructure projects of the decade. Using neutrons to examine the structure of matter, the ESS will help scientists in a huge array of applications – from medical research to new materials, better drugs to longer-lasting batteries, safer and more secure transport and much more.

“The combination of ESS and STFC’s ISIS neutron facility in Oxfordshire will ensure that the UK’s world-leading neutron community continues to have access to the best neutron facilities in the world. Visionary projects such as the ESS can help to attract and develop the skilled workforce the UK needs.” said Professor John Womersley, Chief Executive of the UK’s big science funding body STFC.

Joined by several hundred members of the European scientific community, the event was held to ‘lay the foundation’ both for the new facility, which has recently begun construction, and for a new generation of science in Europe.“I am sure we are all proud to join together today in the start of this great adventure. We are building one of the world’s great science facilities, but in a real sense what we are building here, what we are investing in here, is nothing less than our future.”

Following on two decades of increasingly sophisticated technical design work, scientists, engineers, project managers and builders have now embarked on the construction of the most powerful neutron source in the world.

“I am delighted to be present for this next step on a journey that started with a workshop at our Coseners House conference centre in 1991!” added Robert McGreevy, Director of the STFC ISIS Spallation Neutron Source in the UK. “The technologies we have pioneered at ISIS over the past 30 years, and those that we will develop in partnership with ESS over the next 10 years, will underpin the scientific discoveries and economic benefits that ESS will enable.”

First neutrons at ESS are expected by 2019 and the first experiments are scheduled to begin in 2023.

ENDS

Notes for Editors

For facts, images and illustrations, please visit the European Spallation Source website.

Corinne Mosese 
STFC Press Officer
Tel: +44(0)1793 442870
Mobile: +44(0)7557 317200

About ESS

ESS is an intergovernmental research infrastructure project, and it will be built in Lund in southern Scandinavia. At least sixteen European countries will take part in the construction, financing and operation of the ESS. Sweden and Denmark will co-host the ESS and cover 50 percent of the 1.4 B€ investment costs and 20 percent of the operating costs together with the Nordic and Baltic states. The European Spallation Source ESS AB is a public limited company, today owned by the Swedish and the Danish states. ESS AB is planning the future international ESS organisation. Building is expected to start around 2014, the first neutrons to be produced in 2019 and the facility to be fully operational around 2025.

ISIS

ISIS is a world-leading centre for research in the physical and life sciences at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford in the United Kingdom. Our suite of neutron and muon instruments gives unique insights into the properties of materials on the atomic scale. We support a national and international community of more than 3000 scientists for research into subjects ranging from clean energy and the environment, pharmaceuticals and health care, through to nanotechnology and materials engineering, catalysis and polymers, and on to fundamental studies of materials.

We use the technique of neutron scattering. Neutrons tell us where atoms are and how they are moving. By studying how materials work at the atomic level, we can better understand their every-day properties – and so make new materials tailor-made for particular uses. ISIS also produces muons for use in a similar way, providing additional information on how materials work at the atomic scale