European XFEL managing director Prof. Robert Feidenhans’l said: “The Helmholtz Association has a wealth of expertise and knowledge in many disciplines, several of which coincide with our own research interests here at European XFEL. We are very much looking forward to collaborating more closely with experts from across the Helmholtz Association and exploring how we can combine our knowledge to advance and enrich international science.”
The President of the Helmholtz Association Prof. Otmar Wiestler said: “European XFEL is a spectacular research infrastructure. Its extremely short and intense X-ray flashes open up completely new possibilities for researchers from many disciplines - from astrophysics to molecular biology. Just over a year ago the super microscope started operation and now the first results already show its impressive potential. The Helmholtz Association and our member DESY contribute significantly to the operation costs of the XFEL. All participants will profit from the closer cooperation. I am very pleased that we can work even closer together on this excellent project”.
The collaboration agreement builds on existing successful cooperation projects between European XFEL and the Helmholtz Association in a variety of areas of research and management.
About European XFEL
The European XFEL in the Hamburg area is a new international research facility of superlatives: 27,000 X-ray flashes per second and a brilliance that is a billion times higher than that of the best conventional X-ray sources open up completely new opportunities for science. Research groups from around the world will be able to map the atomic details of viruses, decipher the molecular composition of cells, take three-dimensional “photos” of the nanoworld, “film” chemical reactions, and study processes such as those occurring deep inside planets. The construction and operation of the facility is entrusted to European XFEL, a non-profit organisation that cooperates closely with its main shareholder, the research centre DESY, and other organisations worldwide. The company, which has a workforce of more than 300 employees, started user operation of the facility in September 2017. With construction and commissioning costs of 1.25 billion euro (at 2005 price levels) and a total length of 3.4 kilometres, the European XFEL is one of the largest and most ambitious European new research facilities to date. At present, 12 countries have signed the European XFEL Convention: Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
