Five DESY projects to receive €48M from EU innovation funds

Research projects under DESY coordination or with DESY involvement will receive more than 48 million Euros over the next four years from the European Commission. These European projects range from driving innovation in synchrotrons and free-electron lasers to nanotechnologies showcasing DESY’s varied fields of expertise and its drive for innovation and close ties to industry. Four of the five projects succeeded under the European Commission’s “Horizon 2020” programme under a special “Innovation Pilots” call that is supposed to guide the Commission in designing the upcoming “Horizon Europe” programme. DESY’s share in these projects amounts to more than four million Euros.

LEAPS-INNOV is a pilot project to foster open innovation for accelerator-based light sources in Europe. These light sources already form a strong network as the League of European Accelerator based-Photon Sources (LEAPS) that is stimulated to work more closely together with industry through LEAPS-INNOV. Companies that would normally only have third-party involvement in an EU project of this scale have been made partners from the very beginning, including responsibilities in work packages, with the overall goal to drive cutting-edge technology, enhance industry involvement at an early stage of technology development and foster the use of light sources for industry. LEAPS-INNOV is coordinated by DESY with 22 research and industrial beneficiaries and more than 50 industrial partners and EC funding of 10 million Euros for four years. Elke Plönjes is the scientific coordinator.

A project called FEMTOchip is set to revolutionise femtosecond lasers across all industries with a femtosecond laser on a single microchip that promises to perform like state-of-the-art table-top laser systems. It will receive nearly 3.5 million Euros funding for three years. DESY’s Franz Kärtner and Thomas Schwarzbäck from EurA AG gathered the international consortium consisting of ultrafast laser experts, material research and micro integration, with DESY serving as project coordinator. This is DESY’s first project under the EU’s “Future Emerging Technologies“ open scheme.

AIDAinnova builds on the success of its predecessor projects AIDA and AIDA-2020, both of which boosted infrastructure at research labs for the development of new detector technologies. Coordinated by CERN, the successor project receives 10  million Euros EC funding for four years and now features 46 international partners, twelve of which are industry. Having companies directly involved in detector development is a novelty that aims at faster turnaround and more innovation both for research and industry. Its scientific coordinator is DESY’s Felix Sefkow. 

I.FAST has set itself the aim of sustaining the long-term evolution of accelerator technologies in Europe and paving the way to a sustainable new generation of accelerators. The 49 partners, also including businesses, will explore new alternative accelerator concepts and promote advanced prototyping of key technologies that promise to make accelerators and light sources more efficient, smaller and more sustainable. I.FAST is coordinated by CERN, with Ralph Assmann serving as DESY contact, and will receive 10 million Euros over a period of four years. 

Finally, the Horizon 2020-funded project “Nanoscience Foundries and Fine Analysis” (EU-NFFA) will continue its transnational user access programme as strengthened research infrastructure “NEP” (NFFA-Europe-Pilot). DESY offers access to DESY NanoLab and PETRA III, and leads a work package on correlative nano-spectroscopy and nano-diffraction, fostering recent NFFA developments on the re-positioning of small objects. DESY is also involved in a work package on X-ray wavefront metrology, correction and manipulation.

This article was first published on 18 November by DESY.