Periodic Reporting for period 7 - IMPULSE (Integrated Management and reliable oPerations for User-based Laser Scientific Excellence)
Berichtszeitraum: 2023-11-01 bis 2024-04-30
The main objective of the IMPULSE Project was to support the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) transition quickly and effectively into steady-state operations and provide quality access to users, while establishing itself as an efficient organisation under the single governance and management of a newly established European Research Infrastructure Consortium, ELI ERIC. This smooth transition from construction to operations ensured a return on the 850 million EUR from European Structural Investment Funds invested into the construction of the ELI facilities, leveraging synergies between European funding mechanisms while addressing the risks of integrating three large-scale, geographically separated facilities.
The ELI facilities serve laser science and many other fields: materials science, engineering, medicine, biology, chemistry, and astrophysics to name a few. This diversity, combined with unprecedented instrumentation, will produce significant scientific results for decades.
Strengthening interest in laser-based research is important for ELI, the broader community in Europe, and Europe’s continued competitiveness and leadership in this field. The IMPULSE Partners collaborated closely with Laserlab Europe and its H2020 project. This strengthens the European Research Area and leads to increased membership of countries in ELI. That supports the sustainable operations of ELI, ensuring world-class reliability for its lifecycle.
The ELI facilities serve laser science and many other fields: materials science, engineering, medicine, biology, chemistry, and astrophysics to name a few. This diversity, combined with unprecedented instrumentation, will produce significant scientific results for decades.
Strengthening interest in laser-based research is important for ELI, the broader community in Europe, and Europe’s continued competitiveness and leadership in this field. The IMPULSE Partners collaborated closely with Laserlab Europe and its H2020 project. This strengthens the European Research Area and leads to increased membership of countries in ELI. That supports the sustainable operations of ELI, ensuring world-class reliability for its lifecycle.
The establishment of ELI ERIC, a new legal entity that enables the membership of member countries, the successful integration of two of the ELI facilities, ELI Beamlines in Dolní Břežany (Czech Republic) and the ELI ALPS facility in Szeged (Hungary), and the effective transfer of direct operational responsibility to ELI ERIC represent foundational achievements of IMPULSE. The handover of the ELI Beamlines Facility, involving the transfer of all activities, staff, assets and liabilities was successfully completed effective 1 January 2023. The legal integration of the ELI ALPS Facility took place in January 2024 by means of the acquisition by ELI ERIC of a controlling share in ELI-HU Non-profit Ltd, the company responsible for the operations of ELI ALPS. In addition, an Access Agreement was signed with ELI-NP, the third ELI facility, located near Bucharest (Romania), to organise its inclusion and participation in the calls for proposals organised by ELI ERIC. Following Romania’s accession as a Founding Observer in ELI ERIC as of January 2024, work continues beyond IMPULSE on the preparation of ELI-NP’s integration.
The process of establishing ELI ERIC, and expanding its membership, is political and outside the scope of IMPULSE, but the IMPULSE activities facilitated that process and anticipated opportunities and risks related to it. Also, IMPULSE helped accelerate decision-making on common policies to ensure faster integration. In that regard, IMPULSE is a clear success, putting 15 statutory and other policies in place in months, where this took years to other ERICs.
As IMPULSE reached its end, it brought significant results for ELI as a whole, establishing ELI as a leader in high-power, high-repetition rate laser research. WP3 established standard operating procedures to align practices across the 3 Facilities, set up a database for the spare parts data management and accessibility (ELI PANDA) across the ELI sites and gathered the scientific community and industrial partners to agree on common approaches to the standardisation of metrology procedures for lasers and secondary sources (STAMPLASS). WP4 delivered unique coating capabilities at the ELI Facilities, that will help the long-term sustainability of key optical components for high-power laser facilities, pushed forward developments in standardised target design for experiments, established guidelines for optimisation of LIDT of key optical components, and employed machine learning to improve operational efficiency. WP5 established an ELI-wide User Office and successfully launched the Joint ELI User Programme. This was made possible with the development of a dedicated User Portal, common processes and guidelines, and a unified training system to make sure that the same high-quality user access and services are provided at all the ELI Facilities. In total, the first four user calls organised by ELI gathered a total of 341 proposals involving close to 1,200 unique applicants from 36 countries. Launching 4 User Calls within 2 years achieved a core mission for ELI and opened the Facilities for scientific users. Finally, flagship experiments were implemented, demonstrating ELI’s capacity to deliver world-class science. WP6 developed an ELI-wide ecosystem for innovation with the ELI Innovation Board and the ILO (Industry Liaison Office) network to enable further engagement with industrial partners. ELI will build on the shared approach to knowledge transfer and industrial access to maximise ELI’s impact in the future.
Outreach activities were implemented based on the IMPULSE communication and dissemination strategy. While there was active engagement at conferences, seminars, etc., ELI also hosted several key events for outreach and promotion of ELI ERIC membership, internationalisation, and establishment of strategic partnerships. The IMPULSE and ELI websites, main external communication tools for the sharing of results and providing visibility to the partners and their activities, are regularly updated and have been viewed by circa 48,000 visitors.
The process of establishing ELI ERIC, and expanding its membership, is political and outside the scope of IMPULSE, but the IMPULSE activities facilitated that process and anticipated opportunities and risks related to it. Also, IMPULSE helped accelerate decision-making on common policies to ensure faster integration. In that regard, IMPULSE is a clear success, putting 15 statutory and other policies in place in months, where this took years to other ERICs.
As IMPULSE reached its end, it brought significant results for ELI as a whole, establishing ELI as a leader in high-power, high-repetition rate laser research. WP3 established standard operating procedures to align practices across the 3 Facilities, set up a database for the spare parts data management and accessibility (ELI PANDA) across the ELI sites and gathered the scientific community and industrial partners to agree on common approaches to the standardisation of metrology procedures for lasers and secondary sources (STAMPLASS). WP4 delivered unique coating capabilities at the ELI Facilities, that will help the long-term sustainability of key optical components for high-power laser facilities, pushed forward developments in standardised target design for experiments, established guidelines for optimisation of LIDT of key optical components, and employed machine learning to improve operational efficiency. WP5 established an ELI-wide User Office and successfully launched the Joint ELI User Programme. This was made possible with the development of a dedicated User Portal, common processes and guidelines, and a unified training system to make sure that the same high-quality user access and services are provided at all the ELI Facilities. In total, the first four user calls organised by ELI gathered a total of 341 proposals involving close to 1,200 unique applicants from 36 countries. Launching 4 User Calls within 2 years achieved a core mission for ELI and opened the Facilities for scientific users. Finally, flagship experiments were implemented, demonstrating ELI’s capacity to deliver world-class science. WP6 developed an ELI-wide ecosystem for innovation with the ELI Innovation Board and the ILO (Industry Liaison Office) network to enable further engagement with industrial partners. ELI will build on the shared approach to knowledge transfer and industrial access to maximise ELI’s impact in the future.
Outreach activities were implemented based on the IMPULSE communication and dissemination strategy. While there was active engagement at conferences, seminars, etc., ELI also hosted several key events for outreach and promotion of ELI ERIC membership, internationalisation, and establishment of strategic partnerships. The IMPULSE and ELI websites, main external communication tools for the sharing of results and providing visibility to the partners and their activities, are regularly updated and have been viewed by circa 48,000 visitors.
The Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) is the world’s most advanced laser-based user facility, an ESFRI Landmark since 2006. More than 850 million € were invested into the construction of three facilities in Central and Eastern Europe, using European Regional Development Funds. The integration of the ELI facilities into a single organisation is key to ensure the sustainability of that investment.
In addition to significant scientific impacts, IMPULSE brought technical resources and the experience of leading European laser facilities to bear on operational issues. It enhanced competitiveness for Europe in this field. Partners developed best practices together to support best-in-class user experience. The project consortium developed leading technologies and positioned ELI, and Europe, as a leader in high-power laser development, driving innovation in the field.
In collaboration with Laserlab Europe, IMPULSE conducted an analysis of the community to exploit ELI and other laser facilities. Extensive outreach activities in all 9 of the IMPULSE consortium partner countries have been carried out since the beginning of the project until its end and beyond.
IMPULSE also had a unique position in the ELI host countries, in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania. Activities already started in the second reporting period lead to increased collaboration with SMEs, significant increases in training, and possible spin-offs. The ELI facilities focus on collaboration with industrial partners able to disrupt the present technology with innovative solutions. The innovation content focuses on the immediate technical needs of ELI, but will also addresses the long-term sustainability of the solutions to guarantee to ELI the best performance, highest operational uptime and maximum cost efficiency. This is already leading to improvements and developments that trickle down to commercially available large-scale laser systems.
In addition to significant scientific impacts, IMPULSE brought technical resources and the experience of leading European laser facilities to bear on operational issues. It enhanced competitiveness for Europe in this field. Partners developed best practices together to support best-in-class user experience. The project consortium developed leading technologies and positioned ELI, and Europe, as a leader in high-power laser development, driving innovation in the field.
In collaboration with Laserlab Europe, IMPULSE conducted an analysis of the community to exploit ELI and other laser facilities. Extensive outreach activities in all 9 of the IMPULSE consortium partner countries have been carried out since the beginning of the project until its end and beyond.
IMPULSE also had a unique position in the ELI host countries, in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania. Activities already started in the second reporting period lead to increased collaboration with SMEs, significant increases in training, and possible spin-offs. The ELI facilities focus on collaboration with industrial partners able to disrupt the present technology with innovative solutions. The innovation content focuses on the immediate technical needs of ELI, but will also addresses the long-term sustainability of the solutions to guarantee to ELI the best performance, highest operational uptime and maximum cost efficiency. This is already leading to improvements and developments that trickle down to commercially available large-scale laser systems.