Seryi is to take the helm at the John Adams Institute
Andrei Seryi will be the next director of the UK’s John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science (JAI). He takes over from Ken Peach, who became director of the institute for five years in May 2005.
Seryi is currently leading the work on the Facilities for Accelerator Science and Experimental Test Beams (FACET) at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and is leading the Beam Delivery System for the proposed International Linear Collider. He is also deputy spokesperson for the Accelerator Test Facility collaboration based in Japan. He will take up his post in August 2010 and will divide his time between the University of Oxford and Royal Holloway University of London, who jointly host the JAI. He will also hold a fellowship at Wolfson College Oxford.
The JAI is funded by the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). The institute was created in October 2004 with the aid of a grant from the then Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, now merged into the STFC.
UK research receives a boost
Research into accelerator science and technology in the UK has received a boost with the announcement of nearly £20 million of funding by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) to the Cockcroft and John Adams Institutes. The funding, which will benefit particle-, nuclear-, atomic- and molecular-physics research, has been awarded to the two institutes to enable them to continue building on the UK’s strong research base in accelerator R&D and academic expertise.
The grants will see the Cockcroft Institute of Accelerator Science and Technology awarded £16.4 million to run to 2017 and the John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science awarded a £3.4 million grant to run to 2012. The announcement of funding to the two institutes follows a review of both of them earlier this year by a panel of international experts. Both grants will be backdated to April 2009.
The Cockcroft and John Adams Institutes were created to place academics, scientists and engineers at the forefront of developing the next generation of particle accelerators to meet physicists’ demands for higher energy and higher-intensity particle beams for fundamental research. Both institutes participate in the research and development towards future global particle-physics projects based on linear-collider technology and for the study of neutrinos. They are also involved in activities for next-generation light sources as well as in emerging activities for high-current proton accelerators for various sciences and applications using hadron and electron–hadron colliders, neutrons and muons. At the same time, the institutes are also enabling strong links to be built between the research community and hi-tech industry to ensure that the UK can get the maximum benefit from its science.
The Cockcroft Institute is based at the Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus and is a partnership between the STFC Daresbury Laboratory and the universities of Lancaster, Liverpool and Manchester, with support from the Northwest Regional Development Agency. The John Adams Institute is a collaboration between the universities of Oxford and Royal Holloway, London, and has facilities on both sites.
UK donates tech components to SESAME
One of the legacies of the world’s first dedicated synchrotron light source will be to enable scientific collaboration in the Middle East following the donation of decommissioned components by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) to the Synchrotron light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME). The components, originally from the Synchrotron Radiation Source in Daresbury, will be used to construct experimental beamlines for research into materials and life sciences.
The SESAME project has brought together the governments and scientists of Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, the Palestinian Territories and Turkey, with representatives from another 11 countries (including the UK and Germany, which donated its BESSY I machine) participating as observers to provide help and advice. SESAME is the region’s first major international research centre, built in Jordan under the umbrella of UNESCO.