CREMLIN Annual Meeting and Workshop on Internationalization at ESS ERIC in Lund

The CREMLIN Consortium partner ESS – the European Spallation Source ERIC – hosted the second General Assembly Meeting, or Consortium Board Meeting, of the CREMLIN project on 29 June 2016 in Lund, Sweden. Back-to-back with this meeting, a Workshop on internationalization issues was organized on 30 June. A tour through the ESS construction site, through the MAX IV Laboratory and an introduction into the Scandinavia Science Village concept rounded off this large CREMLIN suite of events in Sweden.

Internationalization was the overarching topic of the CREMLIN-events in Lund. More than 50 experts from European and Russian partner labs in the CREMLIN project as well as external experts came together in order to discuss the many facets of this topic and its relevance for European and Russian megascience facilities and their cooperation. During the workshop, a number of specific questions out of three categories have been discussed with regard especially to the Russian megascience facilities, pointing out the respective next steps that should be implemented within the specific internationalization strategies: (i) user level and utilization of the facility, (ii) governance, (iii) collaboration framework on science policy level.

During the workshop discussion, one key emphasis was put on questions related to access to research infrastructures, for instance: How is Open Access organized at the facility? Is access and usage solely based on scientific excellence of the application and the planned research? How is the User welcome culture organized (guest houses, visa support, Users office…)?

The Podium Discussion with Mikhail Popov (NRC “Kurchatov Institute”), Vladimir Kvardakov (Russian Foundation for Basic Research), Jean Moulin (BELSPO Honorary General Advisor and former Belgian delegate to ESFRI) Andreas Schreyer (ESS ERIC) and Harald Reichert (moderator; ESRF) resulted in the clear recommendation to the CREMLIN project, to address internationalization issues as a key priority within this project, to moderate the process of setting up specific internationalization strategies for the six Russian megascience facilities and to eventually synthesize and propose a Russian charter on internationalization of mega facilities. Mikhail Popov emphasized that the Russian side wants to see its facilities as part of the European research landscape, and that the CREMLIN project provides the appropriate discussion fora in order to achieve progress in approaching Russian mega facilities to its genuine European partners and in discussing the opportunities of European participation in selected Russian mega facilities.

During the events in Lund, all partners also had the opportunity to see the only recently inaugurated MAX IV Laboratory and to become acquainted especially with the NanoMAX and the BioMAX beamlines, and to also be guided through the construction side of the European Spallation Source. The ESS project was introduced by a presentation of the project before. Also the introduction into the Scandinavia Science Village project by Maria Milton was very well received by the audience.

All participants enjoyed a splendid and excellent hospitality at the ESS premises and thanked the organizers on behalf of the ESS, amongst them Ute Gunsenheimer and Dragos Mihai, enthusiastically.