The science at many ESRF beamlines and ILL instruments will increase significantly over the next years thanks to a new Partnership for Soft Condensed Matter (PSCM). On 27 November 2009, the Directors of the ILL and the ESRF established this collaboration with the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

By early 2013, the PSCM will be able to host 20 to 30 scientists and technicians working in 800m2 of laboratory and office space in the new Science Building of the joint ESRF/ILL campus.

In these laboratories, scientists will prepare experiments with highly complex self-assembled and non-equilibrium soft matter systems which cannot be easily transported to Grenoble. Many materials related to nanotechnologies, life sciences, environment and renewable energy are, in fact, soft matter systems.

The PSCM will allow samples of these to be prepared in the immediate vicinity of world-class X-ray and neutron sources, where their properties can be investigated at many different time- and length scales down to atomic resolution.

The planned facilities of the PSCM include instruments for on-site sample preparation, complementary techniques for pre-characterization (e.g. microscopy, rheology, light scattering, ellipsometry, etc.), complex sample environments (surface and interface techniques, systems in confinement, optical tweezers, etc.), advanced data analysis and modeling, and a platform for networking and scientific exchange.
The PSCM will complement research with synchrotron radiation and neutrons by attracting academic and industrial partners who will fund and set up laboratory techniques and sample environments to strengthen what the ESRF and the ILL already offer their users.
This partnership, the second one after the Partnership for Structural Biology (PSB) was established in 2002, will further strengthen the recent focus on pooling the resources and experience of the two institutes.

As the ILL's science Director Andrew Harrison explains, "Our first major partnership, the PSB, has been widely applauded as a highly successful model for research and cooperation. There's no doubt that the new PSCM will inspire a similar level of interest, and  strongly enhance the application of X-rays and neutrons in this field."
The PSCM will benefit the four ESRF soft condensed matter beamlines ID02, ID10A, ID10B, and ID13, and most of the Large Scale Structures and Time-of-Flight instruments at the ILL. Collaborating Research Groups may also take advantage of the new facility. Access will be through peer review and through collaboration agreement when a partner contributes to the staff and equipment of the PSCM.

"Soft matter systems like polymers, liquid crystals and colloids are at the forefront of new advanced materials. The PSCM allows the ESRF and the ILL to play a leading role in addressing the challenges of the 21st century to develop renewable energy sources and to live longer in better health" says Francesco Sette, Director General of the ESRF.