LUND – At the 15th ESS Council meeting, held in Lund on 18th and 19th February, Dr. Beatrix Vierkorn-Rudolph and Prof. Dr. Kurt Clausen were elected as the new Chair and Vice Chair of the ESS Council, starting on 1st July 2019.
Beatrix Vierkorn-Rudolph has served as Vice Chair of the ESS Council since 2017, and prior to that was one of the German delegates since the foundation of the European Spallation Source ERIC. She has a Ph.D. in Analytical and Atmospheric Chemistry from the Technical University of Darmstadt, and has a long record in management of scientific research infrastructures within the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. She has served on many other panels, including as Chair for ESFRI (European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures) between 2010 and 2013.
Kurt Clausen has recently retired from a long career in scientific facilities, with a prominent role at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland, and is now Professor Emeritus at Danish Technological University. He has been continuously involved in the ESS project since 1993, participating in many of the early proposals for the facility and subsequently coordinating the Swiss participation in the ESS project in Lund. he has also chaired the ESS Technical Advisory Committee.
The current Chair of the ESS Council, Lars Börjesson, has now served the maximum of two terms, and will therefore step down on 30th June.
The meeting also concluded that the project is progressing, having now reached almost 60% of the project scope. It discussed the thoughtful recommendations of the 2018 annual review of the project, which brought together a committee of more than 20 international experts in Lund in December to assess progress so far and provide advise on the coming phases and challenges of the project, including a greater focus on the installation and commissioning of major parts of the accelerator and target complex.
The Council also concluded on ESS policies for in-kind contributions form the Members States during the Operations Phase.