Cerdanyola del Vallès, 16th July 2020 Since the shutdown of the facility on March 13th due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ALBA staff has intensively worked to minimize the impact on the user's science programs by developing socially responsible operations conditions which also ensure the safety of all users and employees. In a multistep approach, adjusted to the general health conditions of Spain and in particular in Catalonia, ALBA developed a constantly growing user operation. Starting in mid of April with the COVID-19 mode in which only XALOC provided 8 hours of beamtime on four days of the week, to a rump up of all beamlines during the period of April and beginning of May, ALBA beam was back to an operating user program at all eight beamlines in June. This program is based on the original operations schedule and is limited to mail-in and remote access.
Allocated experiments scheduled after March 13th were formally canceled but were offered beamtime in the mail-in/remote operation mode providing users with beamtime as long as samples were available and the specific operation conditions were allowing the complexity of the proposed experiments. Finally, about 80% of the experiments allocated during the 1st semester with beamtime were provided.
Now, the new call for 2021-I is open. The call has a submission period between 7th July and 7th September 2020 before 23:59h, and is welcoming proposals for ten beamlines, including for the first time LOREA and NOTOS.
The processing of the call for 2020-II was mostly following the original timelines and is now fully processed. During July, mainly mail-in and remote access have been performed but there were also the first users back onsite, significantly gaining flexibility and allowing back complex operando and in-situ experiments. This "new normality" will be implemented after the large summer shutdown of August which will be used as every year for maintenance of the facility and important installation activities providing new research capabilities with two of the new beamlines already available in the 2021-I run.
Starting with September, it is expected full user operation with the possibility of visiting ALBA for performing experiments. Mail-in and remote access will still be provided as long as the missing presence does not impact the success of the experiments. To give users another tool maneuvering the difficult conditions during the pandemic, the User Office will provide in addition to the usual services some instruction and guidelines for travel, accommodation, and food. Despite the pandemic threat, ALBA is strongly working for being a safe place to work to allow users to fully focus on their experiments.
