26 THE SWEDISH GUIDE
European research facilities
CERN Geneva, on the border between Switzerland and France CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire) is a European research facility set up in 1954 by 12 founder states, one of which was Sweden. CERN now has 23 Member States and a number of Associate Member States. At CERN, 2500 staff and some 15,000 external scientists advance the boundaries of knowledge regarding the origins of
We are Sweden’s official ILO organisation, serving European Big Science research facilities in which Sweden is a member. The focus is on Big Science facilities and fields important for Swedish science, innovation, technology and business.
our universe and its smallest building blocks, subatomic particles. The heart of the CERN facility is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27-kilometre circular particle accelerator. The High Luminosity project, due to come into operation in 2025, will increase the luminosity of the LHC by a power of ten. The materials budget of the High Luminosity project is nearly CHF 950 million.
ITER Cadarache, France; European procurement organisation F4E in Barcelona, Spain ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor)
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is a global cooperation project, funded by 35 nations, to build the world’s largest Tokamak reactor for research into
ESS Lund, Sweden
fusion energy. It will be the largest fusion experiment facility
ESS (European Spallation Source) will be a world-leading
500 MW of power from an input of 50 MW. It will be the first
multi-disciplinary research facility, based on the world’s
plant that integrates all the various technologies needed to
most powerful spallation source. ESS will enable scientific
operate a fusion reactor. Experiments at ITER are scheduled
breakthroughs in research related to materials, energy,
to begin in 2025, and the construction budget is EUR 20
health and the environment, addressing some of the most
billion. F4E (Fusion for Energy) is the EU organisation
important societal challenges of our time. ESS, currently
responsible for the EU contribution to ITER.
in the world and the first to produce net energy, producing
under construction and hosted by Sweden and Denmark, building and will operate the facility jointly. ESS expects to
ILL Grenoble, France
welcome its first researchers in 2023.
The Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) is an existing spallation
is a collaboration between 13 European countries that are
facility that has been in operation for more than 45 years.
MAX IV Lund, Sweden
ILL was founded in 1972 by France, Germany, and the UK,
MAX IV is a synchrotron light facility that began operations
percent of the capacity of ILL is dedicated to fundamental
in 2016. Hosted by Lund University, it is the world’s most
research and 40% is dedicated to research into societal
brilliant synchrotron light source, capable of viewing material
challenges. The facility is undergoing a modernisation
structures atom by atom. MAX IV facilitates discoveries
programme that has increased the detection rate of the
of new structures at nanolevel, and scientists are able to
instruments by a factor of 25, and the programme is about
monitor chemical processes in real time. The facility can
to move into its second phase.
house up to 26 beamlines. At full capacity, more than 2000 scientists are expected to conduct experiments at MAX IV every year.
and there are ten further Scientific Member countries. Sixty
