Speaker
Description
NEPHEWS and beyond: Sustainable user access to external Photon and Neutron Infrastructures
Cormac McGuinness, Astrid Schneidewind, Rosen Georgiev and Piotr Piwowarczyck
The NEPHEWS project currently provides Trans-National Access (TNA) funding for users from across all of Europe to perform experiments at the majority of synchrotron, FEL and neutron research infrastructures (RI) of the LEAPS and LENS consortia. This access has been particularly aimed at Widening countries, countries without these facilities and eight targeted countries for priority access which includes Ukraine. Scientists from Ukraine, in addition to TNA support for experiments, have also been able to benefit as Twinning guests participating in experiments with expert host groups, as well as benefitting from internship opportunities for Early-Stage Researchers at these research infrastructures. Future NEPHEWS style Access projects are clearly desirable.
Ongoing changes in European Commission funding leading to FP10 are intended to lead to more sustainable continuous baseline access to RI across Europe, and are being implemented through a sequence of Horizon Europe calls leading to a cross-domain Infrastructure Service pilot access project that could begin in 2028. The most sustainable access funding for national user communities lie within the policies of each nations science funding agencies and science and research ministries. We present an optimal model for scientific user communities, through the combination of i) membership of international research organisations aligned with national objectives; ii) investment in external research infrastructures; and iii) in structural access supports for national users to all the Open external research infrastructure. The best example is the long extant Danish model of membership, investment, and of user support, the latter occurring through the DanScatt project. Ukraine is well positioned to implement new policy and a similar future scheme to take best advantage of access to the European research infrastructure networks. A sustained scheme to access the state-of-the-art cutting edge instruments located at the European world class research facilities will continue to underpin European research and technological sovereignty and place Ukrainian researchers at the heart of this initiative within Europe.
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