New exciting perspectives for nuclear research Closer links between fundamental and applied research, fruitful partnerships between academia and industry and numerous benefits to society emerged from an EU-funded network of nuclear research infrastructures across Europe. Industrial Technologies © Thinkstock From astrophysics to power generation and radioactivity, the field of nuclear physics has opened up new horizons in research and development. In Europe, nuclear physics remains a dynamic field of basic and applied sciences thanks to a network of large- and smaller-scale facilities that collaborate. The EU-funded project ENSAR (European nuclear science and applications research) set a transnational access programme allowing a large community of scientists' access to the participating facilities. Among its 30 partners were the seven largest nuclear facilities in Europe, including the Grand Accélérateur National d'Ions Lourds (GANIL) in Caen, France. Armed with the ambitious objective to radically enhance access to these facilities, the ENSAR team outlined both scientific and technical priorities to improve the infrastructures' operation. It identified specific topics of interest that can strengthen research activities and help upgrade components such as magnetic spectrometers to improve radioactive ion beam efficiency. ENSAR partner institutes also initiated seven joint research activities for the development of new technologies that will exploit ion beams. Networking activities aimed to consolidate the efforts of European scientists in understanding the structure of the atomic nucleus for advanced applications in nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics. During the four-year lifetime of the ENSAR project, several workshops and meetings were held. This allowed scientists to follow the work carried out and identify the most promising directions for future research. One such workshop on future super-heavy element strategy was hosted in Germany, and another on advances and challenges in nuclear physics with high-intensity stable beams was organised in Italy. Between workshops and facility upgrades, nuclear scientists across Europe were able to access top-notch facilities and bring forth benefits to society. The human capital trained in advanced techniques with industrial applications and applied research organisations was just one of the many outcomes of the ENSAR project. It is imperative to ensure continued access to nuclear research facilities and specialised installations to advance scientific knowledge. The ENSAR project has pooled the available resources including human capital. This should prove to be an invaluable investment for the future of nuclear research. Keywords Fundamental and applied research, radioactivity, nuclear physics, research and development, magnetic spectrometer, nuclear astrophysics
