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ALBA HOSTS THE 3rd LEAPS PLENARY MEETING

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More than 170 participants from all Europe met up virtually for the third League of European Accelerator-based Photon Sources (LEAPS) Plenary meeting. The event has been hosted by the ALBA Synchrotron, whose director, Caterina Biscari, will continue as Chair of LEAPS in 2021.

LEAPS 2020 Caterina LeapsPlenary-IM2

Left: Caterina Biscari, Chair of LEAPS and Director of the ALBA Synchrotron, giving an update on the LEAPS status and perspectives. Right: Some of the attendees and speakers to the LEAPS Plenary Meeting 2020.

Cerdanyola del Vallès, 1 December 2020. LEAPS Plenary meeting was held on 24–25 November, being the first-day session attended only by LEAPS members, associates and partners, reporting on on-going activities and discussing plans for the future, while on the second day LEAPS received also guests and stakeholders.

The Plenary started with a welcome by Caterina Biscari, Chair of LEAPS, who gave an update on the LEAPS status and an overview of its perspectives. Then, Michele Svandrlik (ELETTRA) introduced DIGITAL LEAPS, the program being developed in answer to the pandemic crisis. It is based on learning from present challenges, aiming at the evolution of those digitalization and automatization tools proven to be essential during the particular difficulties of this year towards key instruments for a resilient, digital and green RI operation, well within the scope of the European Green Deal and missions of Horizon Europe. Next, all LEAPS Strategy and Working Groups outbroke in parallel sessions wrapping-up the activities done since the last plenary meeting and specially planning the future ones.          

The last part of the first day was devoted to the activities planned for 2021, presented by the group leaders in the plenum, guided and summed up by Helmut Dosch, director of DESY and vice-chair of LEAPS.

On the second day, LEAPS received guests and stakeholders, including representatives from European Commission and from national funding agencies, even some from European countries not hosting a LEAPS member facility but using it for their research and innovation activities. The day began with a presentation on the LEAPS status focused on COVID19 times by Caterina Biscari. Next, Antje Vollmer (HZB) introduced IDEA (LEAPS for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-discrimination), Michele Svandrlik explained the project DIGITAL LEAPS and Rudolf Dimper (ESRF) talked about the LEAPS connection to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). Following him, Elke Plönjes presented LEAPS-INNOV, an H2020 pilot project just granted by the EC, that focusses on the implementation of new strategies and activities for long-term partnerships between industry and the European light sources. Finally, Jan Lüning (HZB) and Ullrich Pietsch (University of Siegen) presented how the European Synchrotron and FEL User Organization (ESUO) has recently been approved as Strategic LEAPS Partner.

After this session led by Helmut Dosch, Caterina Biscari chaired the second one devoted to introducing the new network ARIE (Analytical Research Infrastructures in Europe), which includes more than one hundred user facilities performing research using electrons, magnetic fields, protons, lasers, neutrons, photon sources and ion beams. ARIE inception on a LEAPS initiative is meant to tackle pressing societal challenges, as described in the recently published position papers on Horizon Europe Missions and on Viral and Microbial Threats. ARIE represents the widest and most mature set of analytical research infrastructures in the world. Mirjam van Daalen (PSI) and Harald Reichert (ESRF) talked about ARIE position papers and ARIE European Green Deal proposal, respectively.

The session that followed was devoted to the future of LEAPS and was chaired by Lenny Rivkin (PSI and vice-chair of LEAPS). After an overview on LEAPS under Horizon Europe by Johannes Klumpers (European Commission DG R&I), a panel discussion moderated by Gastón García (CMAM / ALBA) was held, with the participation of Christiaan Zonnevylle (RAITH, Industry supplier), Helmut Schober (ILL and Chair of LENS, another LEAPS Strategic Partner), Jan Hrušák (ESFRI), Johannes Klumpers (European Commission DG R&I), Lenny Rivkin (PSI) and Ullrich Pietsch (University of Siegen, ESUO). They made clear that while LEAPS plans for the future are well aligned with the European Commission objectives on RIs, a further interchange between LEAPS, European Commission and all LEAPS stakeholders will be key to help defining these plans as their successful developments strongly rely on budget availability.

The meeting ended up with an open discussion with all the attendees lead also by Gastón García, and finally, conclusions were summed up by Caterina Biscari who, thanking all participants for their contribution to the successful event, highlighted how LEAPS voice is now strongly heard in Europe and beyond and how LEAPS facilities have really started to work together under LEAPS umbrella.

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