Strategies for Swedish research infrastructure

The Committee for Research Infrastructure at the Swedish Research Council has produced a long term roadmap for research infrastructure for all fileds of science. The roadmap, which will be annually updated has a perspective of 10-20 years.

A member organisation view

• An impressing achievement that this could be done at all - a pan-european effort in all disciplines

• A great stimulus to organise national priorities • An invaluable experience to use in a national procedure for

infrastructure prioritization and roadmaps

• The first Swedish roadmap was released

the same day as the ESFRI roadmap.

Organisation

The aim of the Committee for Research InfrastructureThe committee shall work for and support the construction and utilisation of research infrastructure (RI) for Swedish research of the highest quality in all scientific disciplines.

Tasks• review of proposals

– planning grants for RI– expensive equipment– grants for databases– grants for operation of RI - new

• assessments of existing and planned RI• represent Sweden in international collaborations• long term strategic work, e.g. a roadmap for RI

Funding structure of the Committee

Total funding ~ 650 MSEK• Memberships in international facilities• Expensive research equipment• Grants for operation of RI• Planning grants for new or updated RI• Grants for building up of databases

Grants to research only through the science councils

Members of the Committee for Research Infrastructure

9 members are scientists from a broad range of disciplines; astronomy, hadron physics, scientific imaging, zoo-physiology, linguistics, materials science, bio-informatics, medical biotechnology

4 members represent other governmental research agencies; VINNOVA (agency for innovation systems), FORMAS (Research council for environment, agricultural science and spatial planning), FAS (Council for working life and social science), FOI (defense research agency).

KFI:s review groups• Infrastructure for astronomy and particle physics

High energy and nuclear physics, fusion, astronomy

• Infrastructure för molecular, cell och materials research Synchrotron and neutron facilities, micro/nano fabrications labs,

biobanks, ”genome core facilities”…

• Infrastructure for research on earth och it’s close surronding

Climate, environmental, polar, atmosphere, geological research…

• Infrastructure for e-Science Research data bases, high performance networks and computing…

Tasks of the review groups

• Make an inventory of existing and planned infrastructure

• Consult the relevant scientific community in any appropriate way to find out about needs

• Make a review of the current standing of the field and expected needs in10-15 years

• Make a recommendation for action; new or upgraded infrastructure, decommissioning, reorganisation, cooperation, or further in depth investigation

• Act as expert group for review of grant applications (expensive equipment, planning grants..)

Definition of research infrastructure

For example large research facilities databases, biobanks, extensive computing resources and networks. They must:

• be of broad national interest • provide scope for outstanding research • be used by several research groups with highly advanced research projects• be so extensive that individual groups are unable too operate them unaided• have a long-term planning scientific, technical and funding plan • provide open and easy access to all researchers, on a best science basis

Work planFirst roadmap• Inventory of existing or planned infrastructures, autumn 05• Analysis, hearings (GRID, XFEL, FAIR, ESS, databases)

recommendations, end of autumn and early spring 06• First draft of roadmap to science council for opinion, end of

March 06• Visits to all major universities and discussions with their

managements, March-April 06• Open discussion seminar May 9 • Open web-discussion, 9 - 20 May• KFI decides on roadmap, May 06• Board of the research council approves the roadmap, June 06• Printed version released, October 19

www.vr.se

General principles

• A balance between investment in infrastructure and its operation and use for research.• Coordination of research infrastructure for efficient utilisation of resources and skills.• Research infrastructures and the data produced through their use should be made as openly accessible as possible• Priority systems - research of the highest quality should gain access to the facilities.• Planning of new infrastructure - relations to existing or planned infrastructures have to be clarified.

Top priority: completing the construction of approved infrastructure

• The telescope ALMA in Chile (ESO)*

• The Database InfraStructure (DISC)

• The neutrino-telescope IceCube at the South Pole station*

• The fusion facility ITER*

• LHC vid CERN *

• MAX-lab, synchrotron facility in Lund

• Nordic datagrid facility (NDGF)*

* Swedish involvement

High priority - decisions within about a year

European spallation sourceMAX IV synchrotron-FEL

XFEL, Hamburg FAIR, Darmstadt

Investigations of infrastructures or fields of great potential

• Evaluation of the Myfab Micro- Nanofabrication network facility• Co-ordination and logistics in polar research.• Co-ordination of land-based and space-based infrastructures for Astronomy and

Astroparticle Physics. • Co-ordination of databases for climate and environmental research and how they can

be made more accessible to researchers. • Investigation of how infrastructures for the biosciences can be coordinated to enhance

accessibility and facilitate large-scale analyses of information on plant, animal and human biology.

• Investigation of whether the large quantities of biomedical data stored in biobanks can be standardised and made available in a way that is legally and ethically acceptable.

• Investigation of large-scale computer resources for high performance computing. • Investigation of digitisation of research databases in the Humanities. • Investigation of infrastructure for language technology. • Evaluation of scientific case of the MAX IV facility• Investigation of the relationship between different facilities for materials studies.

Workplan for updateSecond roadmapUpdate with regard to • Opinions from community• ESFRI roadmap• Results of reviews and evaluations proposed in first version (polar

research, biobanks, organisation of data for climate and environmental data, MAX IV synchrotron-FEL,…

Time schedule• First roadmap sent to universities, institutes other agencies for opinion,

autumn 06• Open discussion seminar, Swedish and ESFRI roadmaps, Nov 23• First draft of update, middle of March 07• Draft to science councils and agencies for opinion, April 07• Approval of board summer, 2007• To government as a strategic document for next research bill, 07

The Evaluation Panel is unanimous in its conclusion that the scientificcase for a MAX IV facility is very strong, representing a site for intrascientificchallenges as well as interscientific advances and an important resourcefor upgraded industrial research in the Nordic and possibly Baltic countries.

The Evaluation Panel is clear in its recommendation to the Swedish ScienceCouncil:MAX IV should be funded to the level requested, and the funding should commenceas soon as possible.

Will be open for international participation !

ESFRI projects - EU call

• Call for Expression of Interest of the research community

• Hearing March 6• Decision to participate in proposals for ESS,

XFEL and FAIR• Decision pending for about 10 other projects

(LifeWatch, ICOS, ELIXIR, Infrafrontier, EU-HPC, Biobanks, EATRIS, CLARIN, IRUVX-FEL, EURO-ARGO, EUFAR, ELT, EMSO)

Outline of MAX IV

Coherent radiator 3 GeV linac

3 and 1.5 GeV rings

X-ray ring Soft X-ray ringRing circumference (m) 285 285Operating energy (GeV) 3 1.5Circulating current (A) 0.5 0.5Horisontal emittance (nm rad) 0.86 0.3Nr of straight sections 12 12Length of straight sect. (m) 4.6 4.6

Lattice parameters of the MAX IV rings

Photon Energy (eV)

102 103 104 105

Brilli

ance

1017

1018

1019

1020

1021

1022

3 GeV undulator

3 GeV wiggler

ESRF undulatorALS undulator

MAX II undulator

1.5 GeV undulators

Caculations using SPECTRA