The ESS Council convened in Lund this week for it's 18th meeting, where significant in-kind contributions from the UK, Germany and Spain were approved and discussions progressed on the ESS Initial Operations financial plan.
LUND: When ESS Council concluded its meeting in Sweden this week, it approved in-kind contributions to a value of 44 million Euros.
Most of the approved financial contributions are for work on the neutron science instruments FREIA (liquids reflectometer) which is being provided by the UK's Science & Technology Facilities Council, T-REX (Bispectral Chopper Spectrometer) which is being provided by Jülich Forschungszentrum in Germany; the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics' National Laboratory of the South, and the National Research Council of Italy, and MIRACLES (backscattering spectrometer) being provided by ESS Bilbao.
The ESS Council also noted that ESS is now 65% complete and progressing according to plan, well on track to deliver first science in 2023.
Discussions about the Initial Operations financial plan for the full period leading up to steady-state operations in 2026 progressed, and will continue during 2020.