The active participation of MAX IV in a number of international networks and the networking efforts of the facility staff to exchange knowledge with peers in their field from foreign institutions and develop jointly techniques and equipment resulted in a number of successful projects funded by European funding bodies.
These projects have the common goal of optimising services and guaranteeing that the tools and processes offered to the broad scientific community are constantly improved and developed further. This allows scientific breakthrough and preparedness to address Sustainable Development Goals. Moreover, the projects, in most cases, involve industrial partners that help bridging the fundamental knowledge with applications having market value, with the overall aim of achieving societal impact.
Please find below a list of European projects involving MAX IV.
CURRENTLY ACTIVE PROJECTS
The twinning project EXANST, “Increasing Excellence in Utilizing X-ray Research and Neutron Scattering Techniques at the University of Tartu”, is concerned with further raising the research profile of UTARTU in the field of materials science, by enabling researchers from UTARTU to take full advantage of the best European facilities for materials’ characterization.
In particular, the aim of this twinning project is to develop local expertise at UTARTU in the X-ray research techniques and neutron scattering techniques that are available at leading European synchrotrons and neutron facilities. Another aim of the project is to enhance expertise at UTARTU in the complementary computational methods that are used for materials’ modelling, and analyzing the data generated in X-ray and neutron experiments.
In order to achieve these aims, UTARTU will team up with three advanced partners: MAX IV (Sweden), an advanced partner in synchrotron science, Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ, Germany), an advanced partner in neutron science, and Imperial College London (ICL, UK), an advanced partner in materials’ modelling. Besides the research-orientated endeavours, the advanced partners will also provide guidance to UTARTU on research management, strengthening co-operation between different institutes within UTARTU, and tackling gender and diversity issues.
As part of the twinning project, UTARTU and the advanced partners will jointly carry out three pilot research projects concerned with (i) solid-electrolyte-interphases formed in energy storage devices based on ionic liquids, (ii) photoactive proteins that can serve as optical switches or tuneable fluorescence markers, and (iii) scintillator materials for radiation detection devices. The pilot projects will give researchers from UTARTU an opportunity to gain first-hand experience in specific X-ray and neutron methods and modelling techniques.
MAX IV is involved through knowledge exchange activities and hosting visiting researchers.
Project duration: 2024-2027
LUMINOSITY is an industry driven project aimed at leveraging the flexible perovskite solar cells (PSC) technology to commercially relevant production scales, using established industrial processes. The objective of the project is to demonstrate roll-to-roll (R2R) processed photovoltaic (PV) module with power conversion efficiency (PCE) of >20% at an area of >900 cm2, and thus overcome the efficiency gap between lab-scale and fab-scale processed devices, elevating the TRL up to 7. One of the unique selling points of this work is the commercial substrate foil based on aluminum with fluorinated-tin-oxide (FTO) electrode layer, which is an intellectual property of HyET Solar, the end user in the consortium. By using this substrate foil, LUMINOSITY will alleviate the bottlenecks related to limited process window of typical polymer substrate foils – such as high quality nickel oxide charge transport layer deposition (requires 300ºC thermal process) – to reach high stability, efficiency, and lower environmental impact, while keeping the flexibility. The consortium encompasses the full value chain from research and technology developers, equipment manufacturers, suppliers, and industrial end-users. Together, we are well-equipped to surmount the existing challenges that have hindered the widespread adoption of PSC technology. Specifically, LUMINOSITY will achieve operational stability exceeding 20 years that rivals the lifetime of current commercial thin film PV technologies, while ensuring economic (0.14 USD/W at R2R production scale) and environmental feasibility (50% lower CO2 foot-print in comparison to c-Si PV), substantiated by comprehensive Life Cycle and Techno-economic Analysis.
LUMINOSITY will fast-track the market uptake of flexible perovskite PV technology and thus enable rapid increase of PV installation capacity in EU to reach the goals set by REPowerEU plan.
Project duration: 2024-2028 (48 months)
RIANA is a Horizon Europe funded project which supports curiosity-driven research in nanoscience with open research questions for long-term impact, and challenge-driven research in nanotechnology with targeted research questions for short- and mid-term impact.
At the core of the RIANA consortium is the ARIE network (Analytical Research Infrastructures in Europe) that comprises European networks with a focus on large scale research infrastructures.
Coordinated by DESY, RIANA joins 7 European networks of top-level RIs to cover the most advanced techniques relevant to nanofabrication, processing/synthesis, characterization, and analysis as well as simulation capacity. Highly customized and efficient access to 69 infrastructures is coordinated via a single-entry point and enabled through comprehensive scientific and innovation service by senior scientists, facility experts, and highly trained junior scientists. This project encompasses both curiosity-driven research in nanoscience with open research questions for long-term impact, and challenge-driven research in nanotechnology with targeted research questions for short- and mid-term impact.
This core of RIANA is aligned to attract experienced and new users from academia or industry making their promising ideas a success and pushing them to higher TRL. Being flexible to upcoming emergent scientific topics and needs, together with stakeholders from the Nano-community, RIANA implements the opportunity to offer access to additional infrastructures in, and even outside of Europe and to adapt the scientific service via additionally specialized junior scientists. Based on the four years of experience, the RIANA consortium will develop a roadmap for the future of nanoscience and nanotechnology at European RIs.
MAX IV is involved as work package leader managing the centralised user access, hosting a postdoc with SAXS/WAXS expertise at the CoSAXS beamline and through beamtime provision.
Project duration: 2024-2028 (48 months)
NEutrons and PHotons Elevating Worldwide Science (NEPHEWS) will deliver access to the world-class collective of Europe’s premiere open advanced neutron (N), synchrotron (SR) and free-electron laser (FEL) complementary research infrastructures (RI), to promote curiosity driven excellence in research. In NEPHEWS the RI institute in a novel approach jointly with their 40k+ user base of scientists through Users Organisations to provide a user-driven access program targeting new and non-expert communities, with a focus on Widening countries, Ukraine and Africa, a priority. The bottom-up User-to-User-oriented approach aims to build an integrated European RI landscape involving LEAPS and LENS consortia and their European scientific user communities.
NEPHEWS will provide 135 twinning experiments, successful piloted in the CALIPSOplus project, and 451 user experiments across European RI facilities. New and non-expert users receive in-depth hands-on expert training in twinning research experiments with expert-users. These actions are complimented with support in virtual access, workshops, schools and proposal writing. All build expertise, foster collaborations, and widen user access across the ERA.
NEPHEWS will specifically engage user and scientific communities of selected priority countries via outreach visits at universities, supporting political dialogue with national funding authorities (NFAs). To this end, NEPHEWS will deliver quantitative reporting of its actions and use country-specific quantitative data from novel community analysis methods. This will be the basis for an informed science policy when advocating to NFAs on the merits and benefits of sustained nationally funded user access to these RI.
NEPHEWS brings a paradigm shift in the ERA RI landscape by direct involvement of the user communities to instigate wider access across the most advanced RI of the world. The integration is simultaneously realized for the FEL, SR and N communities across the ERA.
MAX IV is involved through provision of beamtime.
Project duration: 2024-2026 (36 months)
The RF2.0 consortium vision is to design and operate accelerators in the way that they can run safe and stable anytime on 100% renewable energy supply, i.e. almost independently from the public power grid.
This project’s originality lies in the comprehensive analysis of large research infrastructures’ energy management problem, from component to system level, both at experimental physics and energy engineering level, and in developing and testing in realistic environments of possible corrective actions.
The RF2.0 project will involve 6 world renowned research infrastructures for the acceleration of particles, of which 5 of European Interest, an energy technology lab, and 4 SMEs focused on the (co-)development and technology transfer of new energy solutions.
Project duration: 2024-2026 (36 months)
X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) is one of the most widely used methods of characterization in applied surface science. It is applied in studies of heterogeneous catalysis, environmental degradation, corrosion, the manufacture of surface coatings, and various other processes.
However, the practical value of XPS measurements is currently negatively affected by widespread problems in the analysis of recorded spectra. These have been extensively discussed in recent scientific literature, and problems with peak fitting and peak assignment in core level XPS have been identified as a source of significant errors in the analysis of XPS spectra. These problems can limit the amount of useful chemical insights that XPS is able to provide, and moreover, incorrect peak assignments can lead to the wrong conclusions being drawn about the underlying chemistry.
The aim of this research project is to tackle these problems by enabling and encouraging the more widespread use of computational methods in the interpretation of experimental XPS spectra, and to thereby make XPS a more reliable and more useful method of characterization.
Specifically, we want to make existing computational methods for calculating core electron binding energies and simulating core level spectra accessible to a wider community of researchers, and to improve these methods such that they would better meet the needs of XPS users. We will develop new, computationally efficient and user-friendly implementations of the ΔSCF method and the GW+cumulant approach, carry out case-studies that are designed to test the limits of current theories in guiding the analysis of real world spectra, and organize workshops and write tutorials to increase the user base of the computational techniques.
The planned work will be carried out by an international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral team of experts in theoretical spectroscopy, developers of electronic structure codes, XPS users, and instrument manufacturers.
MAX IV is involved in the project as host of visiting researchers to promote knowledge exchange.
Project duration: 2024-2027 (48 months)
The HALRIC project is an EU-supported initiative to increase the utilisation of the strong and unique life science research infrastructures and competences present in Northern Europe – more precisely Denmark, Southern Sweden, the Hamburg region, and the Oslo region. The primary aim of the initiative is to increase the engagement of companies and hospitals in research collaborations with the large-scale infrastructures (MAX IV, ESS, EuXFEL and DESY) and with smaller-scale infrastructures, through supporting up to 75 collaborative pilot projects.
Project duration: 2023-2026
https://www.mediconvillage.se/hanseatic-life-science-research-infrastructure-consortium-halric/
PRISMAS – PhD Research and Innovation in Synchrotron Methods and Applications in Sweden – is a doctoral programme training the next generation of leading synchrotron experts, co-funded by the REA (European Research Executive Agency) in the framework of the Marie Sklodowska Curie COFUND Programme.
The program aims to train 40 curious, problem-solving PhD students in advanced synchrotron methodologies and techniques and their application in tackling current and future societal challenges. It is committed to educating fellows with outstanding capabilities who will carry forward new insights and experiences to society and their research fields.
MAX IV is the project coordinator. The project involves nine Swedish universities as implementing partners hosting the doctoral student. About 40 other partners contribute to the initiative hosting students for secondment periods.
Project duration: 2023-2027
The research infrastructure project ReMade@ARI, which deals with innovative materials for key components in various areas such as electronics, packaging or textiles, aims to change this: The goal is to develop new materials with high recyclability and at the same time competitive functionalities. To this end, the institutions involved want to harness the potential of more than 50 analytical research infrastructures throughout Europe.
The research infrastructure EU project ReMade@ARI aims to be the central hub for all sectors and research areas in which new materials for a circular economy will be developed. The project provides scientists who are working on the design of new recyclable materials with analytical tools that enable them to explore the properties and the structure of their material in smallest details down to atomic resolution. This requires the exploitation of the most diverse analytical methods, involving appropriate combinations of techniques using photons, electrons, neutrons, ions, positrons and the highest magnetic fields.
MAX IV coordinates the central user office for the consortium and provides an expert hub for cellulose based materials. MAX IV also offers access to two of its 16 beamlines to contribute to Circular Economy motivated scientific cases, making available techniques such as absorption/emission, diffraction, scattering as well as imaging techniques.
Project duration: 2022-2026
The LEAPS-INNOV pilot project focuses on the implementation of new strategies and activities for long-term partnerships between industry and the European light sources, synchrotrons and free-electron lasers, with their tens of thousands of users.
LEAPS-INNOV aims at kick-starting the implementation of the LEAPS Technology Roadmap and, at the same time, at fostering a partnership with European industry through open innovation. It will offer joint technological developments and advanced research capabilities with LEAPS members for industry as collaborator, supplier and user.
MAX IV contributes transversely to the project, leads WP7 (Data Reduction and Compression) and WP9 (Innovation by Co-creation towards Global Challenges) and is in charge of specific tasks in other work packages (Advanced elliptically polarising undulator (EPU) for soft X-ray – WP6, Light source procurement and Towards the Big Science Business Forum platform – WP8) in collaboration with partners.
Project duration: 2021-2025
The NFFA-Europe PILOT project is the extension to 2026 of NFFA-Europe, whose first five-year term ended on February 28, 2021. NFFA-Europe is a distributed research infrastructure that integrates nanofoundries (synthesis and manipulation of nanostructures) with fine analysis available at European large-scale facilities, creating a unique offer for the nanosciences and nanomaterials community. The consortium involves twenty-two beneficiaries and also nine “third parties” as scientific service providers. The project, funded by the European Union with the Horizon 2020 call INFRAIA-03-2020: Pilot for a new model of Integrating Activities, is coordinated by Cnr-Iom. The beneficiaries include academic laboratories and SMEs from nine Member States of the European Union (France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Austria) and from Switzerland, while there are three international organizations. Third parties also introduce new specialized services in the offer of Transnational Access.
Project duration: 2021-2026
iNEXT-Discovery aims to enable access to structural biology research infrastructures for all European researchers, and especially also for non-experts in structural biology. For that reason it brings together a diversity of large research facilities and other groups in a single consortium. Funded by the European Commission Horizon-2020 framework program from February 2020 for a period of four years, iNEXT-Discovery is built on three pillars:
- Allowing trans-national access for external researchers, following rapid peer-review on scientific excellence and translational research potential.
- Performing networking and training activities, such as practical courses and workshops, to enlarge and strengthen the structural biology community.
- Undertaking joint research activities, to increase the quality and quantity of the access offered by our facilities.
Project duration: 2020-2024
PAST PROJECTS
ExPaNDS is the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Photon and Neutron Data Service.
The ambitious ExPaNDS project is a collaboration between 10 national Photon and Neutron Research Infrastructures (PaN RIs) as well as EGI. The project aims to deliver standardised, interoperable, and integrated data sources and data analysis services for Photon and Neutron facilities.
Project duration: 2019-2023
Hanseatic League of Science (HALOS) is an EU project in the program area Öresund-Kattegatt-Skagerak (ÖKS) interreg that started 1st of February 2019. HALOS will build a unique collaboration between Hamburg and South-West Scandinavia, bring together the four unique research facilities MAX IV, ESS, DESY and European XFEL, and create a centre for integrated, world-leading Life Science innovation and research.
Project duration: 2019-2022
The overarching goal of MUMMERING is to create a research tool that encompasses the wealth of new 3D imaging mo-dalities that are surging forward for applications in materials engineering, and to create a doctoral programme that trains 15 early stage researchers (ESRs) in this tool. This is urgently needed to prevent that massive amounts of valuable tomogra-phy data ends on a virtual scrapheap. The challenge of handling and analysing terabytes of 3D data is already limiting the level of scientific insight that is extracted from many data sets. With faster acquisition times and multidimensional modali-ties, these challenges will soon scale to the petabyte regime. To meet this challenge, we will create an open access, open source platform that transparently and efficiently handles the complete workflow from data acquisition, over reconstruction and segmentation to physical modelling, including temporal models, i.e. 3D “movies”. We consider it essential to reach this final step without compromising scientific standards if 3D imaging is to become a pervasive research tool in the visions for Industry 4.0.
Project duration: 2018-2022
The aim of the CALIPSOplus project was to remove barriers for access to world-class accelerator-based light sources in Europe and in the Middle East. To this end, more than 179,000 hours of trans-national access have been provided to these research infrastructures and specific programmes were installed to teach new users how to successfully use synchrotrons and FELs. Dissemination activities targeting industry were complemented by tailor-made support and access programmes for this user group. In parallel the consortium was collaborating on constantly developing technology to keep the facilities at the cutting-edge.
Project duration: 2017-2021
Scientists in the field of structural and computational biology, biophysics, protein formulation and stability have formed the consortium “Protein-excipient Interactions and Protein-Protein Interactions in formulation”, PIPPI, funded under the European Horizon2020 programme. The overall goal is to develop a public database with cutting-edge knowledge about the properties of proteins in pharmaceutical formulations.
PIPPI combined systematic investigations of the physicochemical behavior of a number of proteins with an in-depth understanding of the molecular interactions behind the macroscopic behavior. The consortium consisted of both academic and industrial partners located in Denmark, Sweden, Germany and United Kingdom.
Project duration: 2016-2019
The present proposal for a European Cluster of Advanced Laser Light Sources (EUCALL) was the first attempt to create an all-embracing consortium of all (optical and X-ray) advanced laser light source RIs in Europe. Besides addressing the most urgent technical challenges, EUCALL developed and implemented cross-cutting services for photon-oriented ESFRI projects, optimized the use of advanced laser light sources in Europe by efficient cross-community resource management, enhanced interoperability of the two types of light sources, ensured global competitiveness, and stimulated and supported common long-term strategies and research policies for the application of laser-like short-wavelength radiation in science and innovation. The EUCALL consortium included the three ESFRI projects ELI, European XFEL, and ESRF(up), several national RIs, and the LASERLAB-EUROPE and FELs OF EUROPE networks as representatives for the nationally operated optical laser and free-electron laser RIs.
Project duration: 2015-2018
For information about projects offering transnational access or privileged access please visit Collaborations offering beamtime