Tutti Johansson Falk

After the joint position paper published as a pre-release in July, in which the Analytical Research Infrastructures of Europe (ARIE) presented their plan to tackle Horizon Europe Missions,  the ARIE enhanced its cross-border, multidisciplinary collaboration to offer Europe a strong and valid weapon against the present COVID-19 challenge and other potential viral and microbial threats.

To read the paper directly, please use this link.

“With this paper, once again, the Analytical Research Infrastructures of Europe (ARIE) have demonstrated their multidisciplinary strength”, says Caterina Biscari, Chair of LEAPS and Director of the ALBA Synchrotron in Spain. “The varied and complementary analytical techniques available in the ARIE, coupled with the strong scientific European networks, have enabled to join efforts and battle the sudden, unexpected challenges of the present COVID-19 pandemic”.

The ARIEs are centres of scientific and technological excellence and represent the widest and most mature set of research infrastructures in the world. Supporting a growing community of some 40,000 researchers across Europe, and indeed the globe, they bridge scientific disciplines, academia and industry, and function as multi-faceted science and technology enablers. ”They have already demonstrated that they are able to stand together to confront societal challenges such as cancer and COVID-19, ” says the coordinator of the ARIE working groups, Mirjam van Daalen, vice-Chair of the LEAPS coordination board and Chief of Staff of the Photon Science Division at Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland. ”Their unique capacities, skills and cultures – often reflected in their position on the ESFRI Roadmap – are critical to the analytics and characterisation of Viral and Microbial threats.”

“The technical expertise of the ARIEs has an impressive track record in fostering the development of critical technologies for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures in medicine and health,” highlights Helmut Schober, Chair of LENS and Director of the leading European Neutron Source ILL in Grenoble, France. “The combination of high-end infrastructure and expertise at the different ARIEs is unmatched in the world and it forms an ideal base to develop new and existing multi-disciplinary approaches to tackle infectious agents,” adds Schober.

On 3 September representatives from LEAPS members took part in a hybrid session at ESOF2020.

The session focused on the contribution of accelerator-based photon sources on three important subjects: (i) the new regime of X-ray matter interactions with ultrashort very intense X-ray pulses, (ii) the new potential of coherent imaging and scattering for answering questions about nano dynamics in complex materials and (iii) the unique possibility to stimulate and probe nonlinear phenomena that are at the heart of conversion of light into other forms of energy, relevant to photovoltaics, magnetism and phase transitions in correlated materials.

Moon-shot missions, such as those of Horizon Europe, require exceptional solutions, and the world-leading Analytical Research Infrastructures of Europe (ARIEs) are one of the key places those solutions can be sought. The ARIE Joint Position Paper highlighting how the common, complementary approach will help address the societal challenges of the Horizon Europe Missions framework programme was presented today.

The final paper, with input from the mission boards, can be found here.

“The Analytical Research Infrastructures of Europe (ARIEs) provide unique windows into the workings of the world around us”, says Caterina Biscari, Chair of LEAPS and Director of the ALBA Synchrotron in Spain. “The cross-border cooperation within Europe allows for harnessing the power of its analytical research infrastructures collectively, to fuel the cutting-edge R&D required by the five Horizon Europe Missions. Nowhere else in the world is this readily possible.”

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The ARIEs are centres of scientific and technological excellence, delivering services, data and know-how to a growing and diverse user community of more than 40,000 researchers in academia and industry, across a range of domains: the physical sciences, energy, engineering, the environment and the earth sciences, as well as medicine, health, food and cultural heritage. They include powerful photon sources, such as synchrotrons, laser systems and free-electron lasers; sources of neutrons, ions and other particle beams; and facilities dedicated to advanced electron-microscopy and high magnetic fields.

“Insights into materials and living matter made possible by their collective tools underpin the advanced research necessary for the success of the Horizon Europe Missions”, underlines Helmut Schober, Chair of LENS and Director of the Institut Laue-Langevin in France. ”The ARIEs provide free access to the scientific user community based upon scientific excellence and open data. Access to the ARIEs is equally being made simpler and smarter, more democratised and less reliant on travel. As part of this effort, we are also looking into the possibility of providing ‘challenge-driven’ access in order to speed up the scientific output for societal relevant themes.”

To address the Missions, the transversal platforms of ARIEs will collaborate amongst themselves and with the Mission specialists at unprecedented levels. They will build and exploit open networks to share knowledge and skills, to coordinate access, to prepare samples, and to create the sample environments required for experiments under real conditions; in doing so, they will use the new European Open Science Cloud.

“Within the Horizon Europe Missions, there is an unprecedented opportunity to deploy the analytical techniques, skills and know-how of the ARIEs on a large scale, targeting the Missions’ individual research needs”, concludes the coordinator of the ARIE working group, Mirjam van Daalen, vice Chair of the LEAPS coordination board and Chief of Staff of the Photon Science Division at Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland. “Thanks to the nature of Europe and the ease of multi-disciplinary, cross-border partnerships, the many varied and complementary analytical techniques of the ARIEs can be brought together in coordination with the Horizon Europe Mission specialists. As a result, the unique value of the ARIEs can be added to the Missions, accelerating research and driving solutions for Europe’s citizens.”