Large European R&D project launches in Paris
Large research infrastructures like the ESRF and the ILL are built on making available to scientists the latest in technology for use in scientific experiments. This often requires joint R&D efforts, and the CRISP Project is bringing together eleven main players from across Europe to address four key technology areas for the big science of tomorrow. CRISP was launched on 17 October at the Czech Embassy in Paris.
The acronym CRISP stands for "Cluster of Research Infrastructures for Synergies in Physics". This is a 3-year project partly funded by the European Commission with 12 million Euros from the 7th Framework Programme. CRISP will come in four flavours of technological R&D: particle accelerators; large-scale physics instruments and experiments; detectors and data acquisition technologies; IT and data management systems.
Progress in accelerator technology is essential to provide research infrastructures with the best possible sources of X-rays, ions and neutrons, and to tackle tomorrow’s challenges in nuclear and high-energy physics. Joint developments for novel types of large-scale physics experiments and their related instrumentation will create new scientific opportunities, also across many other fields of science. New initiatives and approaches are required to cope with the ever-increasing flow of data from large experiments, and a joint effort will establish the technological base for adequate platforms for the processing and storage of, and access to these data.
Within the CRISP Project, the eleven participating research entities will exchange know-how and combine their complementary expertise, ensuring cost-efficient and coherent development of new technologies. Such synergies are crucial to respond to a rapidly evolving and internationally mobile community of scientists using these large-scale research facilities. As major players in cutting-edge science, they also contribute to the technological progress needed for tackling big societal challenges in health, environment, sustainable energy, transport and communication.
The eleven partners of the CRISP Project are listed on the roadmap of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI). They are under construction (ELI, ESS, EuroFEL, European XFEL, ILC-HiGrade and SKA), or research infrastructures in operation undergoing an important upgrade (ESRF, GSI-FAIR, ILL, SLHC and GANIL-SPIRAL2).
ESRF and ILL take the lead in several work packages across the four main technological areas as well as for the dissemination & industry related activities. The CRISP project is coordinated by the ESRF.
