Membership of ILL opens Business and Research Pathways for Slovenia

Slovenia has joined the world’s flagship neutron science facility, the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL), as one of the 11 scientific member countries funding the ILL, in addition to the three governing states of France, Germany, and the UK.

As a member state, Slovenian scientists and businesses will now have direct access to the most powerful neutron source in use worldwide, with ILL home to some 40 state-of-the-art instruments that use neutrons to probe and explore matter, aiding the development of drugs, more efficient batteries, our understanding of nuclear physics, and much more. 

The agreement comes at a crucial time for science and international collaboration – researchers around the world are focussing considerable effort to study coronavirus, while research facilities are opening up slowly after national lockdowns. Indeed the ILL reactor is currently operating and the first Covid-19 related research is being performed.

As such, ILL and NIC are encouraging academic researchers and industry throughout Slovenia to submit proposals this September to start using the facility from as early as January 2021.

The National Institute of Chemistry (NIC), a research facility based in Ljubljana, will act as the ILL’s official partner in Slovenia initially until 2023 and will coordinate the country’s scientific community in its use of the resources at ILL. Funding for the cooperation will be provided by the Slovenian Research Agency as part of the NIC research infrastructure.

Prof Mark Johnson, Scientific Director, ILL, said “International scientific cooperation is more important than ever. It is a great pleasure to welcome Slovenia as one of our Scientific Members; the scientific excellence of our institution will be enhanced by the participation of Slovenia’s world-class researchers and academic organisations, who we welcome to submit proposals from this September.”

Prof Gregor Anderluh, Director of the NIC, added “We are very excited to facilitate what will be a stimulating partnership between Slovenia and the ILL. The world-class instruments and expertise at the ILL offers great potential to enhance the innovation and discovery being driven by Slovenian researchers. It may also reveal new possibilities for the community to address both local and global challenges through novel collaborations and cutting-edge science, and we encourage researchers to propose their experiments.”

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