First Industry Advisory Board meeting

Location: Frankfurt, Germany
Date: December 3-4, 2013
Organiser: NMI3
Presentations: here (available only for NMI3 members)

Our article Industrial use of photon & neutron techniques: an opportunity for new businesses? is about the main outcomes of the IAB meeting. You can also find a complete review of our industry events at the issue of Notiziario – Neutroni e Luce di Sincrotrone: Enhancing interaction between industry and large-scale research facilities: NMI3 industry events.

Please click on the picture to read our article about the main outcomes of the IAB meeting.

Innovation is becoming a key driver in European research which will impose a closer interaction between central facilities and industry in the future. Developed over decades with the academic community, neutron scattering and muon spectroscopy have become potentially key techniques in the innovation cycle. However, the evolution of the facilities to meet the needs of the academic community has resulted in an infrastructure that is not necessarily well-suited to innovation-driven research. For example, facilities select experiments based on scientific excellence whereas high-throughput screening of samples may be required by industry. Academic users require data that they will transform into results whereas industry requires scientific results and efficient characterisation of materials.

NMI3 will therefore join forces with the synchrotron I3, CALIPSO , to create a combined Industrial Advisory Board (IAB). Both projects identified 7 industrial user to be part of the IAB. The IAB will help define future, optimal use of neutron, muon and X-ray facilities by industry considering issues like:

• opportunities for industry to engage in research at central European facilities;
• promoting new opportunities and provision of appropriate training;
• industry-specific issues related to proprietary and pre-competitive R&D;
• the operational strategy of the European facilities concerning, for example, suitable instrumentation, access methods and efficient production of results.

Two meetings of the IAB are planned in the duration of the two EC projects, which will also involve the industrial representatives from the Research Infrastructures. The first IAB meeting will be held in Frankfurt on 3-4 December 2013. This meeting helped prepare the second IAB meeting on 19-21 November 2014 in Athens, which will concentrate on the necessary boundary conditions for a successful industrial user relationship.