At CERN, are you in charge of organising an onsite or online event as part of an EU funded project? Here is where you can find inspiration for the data privacy notices that you need to share with the speakers and participants to your event. These data privacy notices were developed by the EU Office in the context of the ATTRACT project in collaboration with the CERN’s Office of Data Privacy.
The aim was to make them as generic as possible for reuse by other EU projects. However each project is specific so make sure to review them for the applicability and potential adaptations for your project.
Here below are the main four data privacy notices:
The harvest of Horizon Europe projects continues for CERN. A few months after announcing the selection of the first Horizon Europe projects with CERN participation, the European Commission announced the selection of the first project coordinated by the Organization, ATTRACT 1(B). This good news was quickly followed by the award of two ERC Consolidator Grants: one in the EP department and one in the TH department. The three projects will respectively address the transition of detection and imaging technologies from the lab to the market, give new perspectives on nuclear structure studies and help our understanding of complex collider events.
The ATTRACT Programme to be extended to Earth observation and monitoring
Following the success of the first ATTRACT project referred to as Phase 1(A) and the recent launch of Phase (2), the ATTRACT Consortium has been granted 5 Million Euros by the European Innovation Council (EIC) to replicate Phase 1(A) with a dedicate focus on Detection and Imaging (D&I) for Earth Observation and Monitoring. This ATTRACT Phase 1(B) will fund 30 breakthrough D&I concepts at €100.000 each. Consortia selected through an Open Call will have 12 months to investigate the scientific merits, technical feasibility, and potential game-changing applicability of their concept up to TRL level 3-5. Technologies should be capable of collecting data (physical, chemical, biological, etc.) with high specificity and extreme sensitivity whilst offering high spatial and temporal resolution and massive parallelism. They should be suitable for seamless integration into pervasive, low cost, and low-power ICT systems (incl. portable, wearable, IoT). The Open Call for proposals is scheduled to be launched during the autumn 2022 with the detailed information on the award and selection criteria.
Two new ERC Consolidator Grants to support fundamental research at CERN
The European Research Council (ERC) was established as the first-ever European programme for support to fundamental research. As one of the very few EU programmes which are truly bottom-up, the ERC has quickly become very popular with the particle physics community. Since the start of the programme in 2007, CERN has been hosting researchers of outstanding track-record thanks to such grants. “CERN is now proud to host the first ERC projects under Horizon Europe, which are two Consolidator Grants. These grants support world-class researchers who are consolidating their own research team and/or programme” explains Svetlomir Stavrev, Head of the EU Projects Management and Operational Support section at CERN.
Neutrons are fascinating particles but their electrical neutrality makes it difficult to learn about their distribution in nuclei. The ERC consolidator grant PreSOBEN aims to investigate this field by using a novel, high-accuracy experimental approach, combining radiation-detected Nuclear Magnetic Resonance with rf-laser double spectroscopy on optically-pumped short-lived nuclei produced at ISOLDE. “The project will involve a close collaboration with quantum-chemistry, atomic- and nuclear-physics theorists, who will use the data to improve their approaches. We hope that this will open new perspectives for nuclear structure studies, determination of neutron-star properties, or APV studies”, explains Dr. Magdalena Kowalska, PreSOBEN Project Coordinator. CERN is the only participant to this project which will run from 1 September 2022 for five years.
The future investigation of the fundamental laws of nature in collider experiments relies on the interpretation of complex scattering events by means of accurate theoretical calculations, which are instrumental to find small signals of elusive new phenomena. These calculations must describe the evolution of the system from the few particles produced in the high-energy phase of the collision to the tens or hundreds of low-energy particles observed in the detectors. “As an ERC consolidator grant, JANUS aims at transforming our understanding of such a multi-scale evolution. New innovative techniques will be developed to obtain state-of-the-art theoretical predictions in the important fields of Higgs and jet physics, enabling their optimal exploration at the LHC and future collider experiments”, explains Pier Francesco Monni, JANUS Project Coordinator. The project, that will start in the fall/winter 2022 for five years, will involve researchers at CERN and at the University of Bern.
From quantum-resistant cryptography to advanced robotics, from two-dimensional materials to extreme data mining, over twenty Horizon Europe calls have been identified by CERN’s EU Projects Office as of potential interest for the organisation. If you are considering EU funding for your R&D projects, please do not hesitate to visit the CERN EU Projects website and contact the EU Office.
The European Commission has recently approved funding for the first Horizon Europe projects coordinated by CERN, including two ERC grants hosted by the Organization.
The CERN EU office, the legal office and the external grants are getting together to give a complete training on all you wanted to know about EU funded projects.
With six modules, the training will teach you how to prepare and write an EU proposal, how to handle the project when funded, how to deal with all the legal and financial aspects and how to communicate about it.
The next session will take place online on 13-14 September 2022.
If you have not yet attended the “EU funded projects-demystified!” training or you are taking your first steps in the world of EU projects, you will be delighted to know that the finances of EU projects are centralized in the FAP department. There is a dedicated section, FAP-RPC-EG to help you from the budget of the proposal to the financial reporting to the EU. Composed of five people, this team has extensive experience on the finances of EU projects from FP6 (which ran from 2002 to 2006) to Horizon Europe (running until 2027) and works closely with the EU office.
You will not be facing this complicated funding programme alone, the team will support you all along the project duration, whatever CERN role in the action is, no matter what project you are involved in: ERC Grants, Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions, Research Infrastructure projects with Transnational Access activities or not, Pre-Commercial Procurement actions or Cascade funding grants… In charge of all financial reports and main contact in case of audits, the team, with the support of the Department Planification Officers (DPO), will implement the project budget in CERN tools, follow-up the expenses and issue the financial reports for you.
Do you have any questions on EU projects, such as what cost is eligible and what not? What is the difference between a contract and a subcontract for the EU? Who should fill timesheets and how? How are expenses reimbursed? How are other beneficiaries of the Consortium paid? What kind of supporting documents should be kept and how long? Just contact the team.
Video clip presenting the AIDAinnova project to collaborate on common detector projects in line with the European Strategy update. The video presents the project’s background and goals. The main focus was put on the main challenges behind detectors technologies and demonstrate the passion of scientists and engineers working on the project. (Video: CERN)
From medical imaging to weather forecasting, from airport security to art restoration, detectors in unexpected places are improving our daily lives.
Started in 2021, the CERN-coordinated AIDAinnova project aims to provide state-of-the-art upgrades to research infrastructures, such as test beams, in order to unfold the scientific potential of detector technologies. The project involves three RTOs (Research and Technology Organisations) and 34 academic institutions in 15 countries, in co-innovation for common detector projects, strengthening the competence and competitiveness of the industrial partners in other markets.
This includes exploration applications of novel technologies, increase of the efficiency and quality of the beam test and irradiation facilities, thus rendering European Industry ready for large series production of HEP detectors.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 101004761.
Over the past five years, the ARIES (Accelerator Research and Innovation for European Science and Society) project has brought together 41 partners from academia and industry from 18 different European countries in the aim of developing key accelerator technologies to make present and future machines more efficient, affordable, reliable and sustainable.
Under the coordination of CERN, the project has been breaking new ground for the accelerator community, and this Horizon 2020-funded effort has now borne his fruits: the European ecosystem of accelerator centres is now stronger than ever, with easily accessible facilities, well-highlighted synergies and new plans to improve current technologies and infrastructures.
Video presentation of the ARIES project when it started as a new initiative to improve particle accelerators and make them more compact and easier to use outside research. (Video: CERN)
One of the project’s main endeavours was the facilitation of transnational access. In the aim of providing a wide range of European researchers and industry with access to top-class accelerator research and test infrastructures, ARIES set up a network of 14 accelerator test facilities across Europe. The programme allows users to carry out tests within five separate domains: magnet, material, electron and proton beam, radiofrequency, and plasma beam. With over 23 000 hours of testing for 307 users, the scheme generated interesting new science and expanded the project’s user community.
ARIES was critical in investigating and promoting new perspectives for accelerator research and development. It created a breeding ground for research in plasma and laser-based acceleration, a field now driven in Europe by EuPRAXIA, another promising EU-funded project. Furthermore, ARIES support was key in ensuring the continuation of initiatives such as studies on high-temperature superconductivity or the revival of the studies on muon colliders. In 2022, a prototype electron gun for electron lenses was assembled and tested by four ARIES collaborators, and breakthrough results were achieved in the fields of thin superconducting films and materials for extreme thermal management.
The use of accelerator to remove harmful emission from ship exhaust was a remarkable example of how society could profit from particle accelerator technologies.
Strong interaction with industry was promoted as a key objective. The project could benefit from an enhanced industrial participation, with the involvement of seven industries and one association, and ran three new co-innovation programmes with industry. It also identified and supported a wealth of technologies with societal and environmental applications, such as a particle accelerator system to remove harmful emission from ship exhaust.
With its mission now fulfilled, ARIES is now coming to a close. However, its succession is ensured thanks to two new projects: started in April 2021, I.FAST will continue and further advance on ARIES’ legacy of joint R&D activities with industry to develop ideas and technologies for the next generation of particle accelerators. In parallel, EURO-LABS will further the transnational access tradition of ARIES, bringing research centres even closer together by creating a new, synergetic network of research facilities for accelerator, detector and nuclear technologies.
In the aim of providing a wide range of European researchers and industry with access to top-class accelerator research and test infrastructures, ARIES set up a network of 14 accelerator test facilities across Europe.
(Image: CERN)
Strap
The EU-funded ARIES project has succeeded in opening new avenues for the accelerator community
Since 2021, the EU-funded I.FAST project has been developing innovative technologies common to multiple accelerator platforms and defining strategic roadmaps for future development. Under CERN coordination, the community of 49 beneficiaries contributes to preparing for the next step of particle physics research, improving the sustainability of accelerator-based science and meeting the specific needs of societal applications.
The project’s Internal Innovation Fund (IIF) was created to stimulate the innovation in accelerator technologies. The primary objective of the fund is to encourage I.FAST beneficiaries to identify innovative solutions with viable industrial or commercial potential. This fast-track, competitive process will finance emerging technologies, processes, research, business models and other innovative solutions, at both development and prototype stages.
Technologies supported by the IIF shall be capable of advancing the state of the art in fields related to the I.FAST thematic areas. They shall also contribute to improving the sustainability of particle accelerator technologies, by reducing accelerators’ electricity consumption or footprint, by improving their performance for an equivalent impact, or by serving direct environmental purposes.
The thematic areas of interest include:
Novel particle accelerator concepts and technologies
High luminosity accelerators for light sources
Innovative superconducting magnets
Innovative superconducting thin film coated cavities
Advanced accelerator technologies and materials
Sustainable concepts and technologies
Societal applications
Technology Infrastructure
Individual projects will receive from 100 to 200 kEUR in funding until the exhaustion of the available fund (1.000.000 euro). The supported projects must include at least one I.FAST beneficiary and one industrial partner in their consortia.
To submit your proposal, complete the web submission form on the I.FAST website by September 15, 2022.
Find out more about the application process by visiting the I.FAST website or by contacting Marcello Losasso, the fund manager.
The use of accelerated particles is now an established medical technique for cancer therapy, providing to the radiation oncologists an alternative tool for the fraction of tumours that are not curable with conventional X-rays. Heavy ions, like carbon, are effective for some tumours resistant to X-rays and protons, but their use is so far limited by the size and cost of the required infrastructure, mainly synchrotron and gantry – the beam delivery system.
Figure 1: Comparison between footprint of the accelerator hall in case of standard resistive magnet synchrotron (top picture) and in case of using SC magnets (bottom picture). [ E. Benedetto et al., “Comparison of accelerator designs for an ion therapy and research facility,” CERN, Switzerland, CERN-ACC-Notes-2020-068 and NIMS note 001, Dec. 2020.]
In order to reduce the machine and gantry footprint and cost, various European initiatives, as SIGRUM and the advanced version of SEEIIST, are planning to use an advanced ion gantry and, eventually, a synchrotron based on Nb-Ti superconducting (SC) magnets, a cheaper option compared to conventional solutions based on resistive magnets (Fig. 1).
More recently, two projects funded under Horizon 2020, HITRIplus and I.FAST, have launched a collaboration to investigate the next generation of ion therapy magnets both for gantry and for accelerator as they have both obtained funding for work packages on superconducting magnets.
The Heavy Ion Therapy Research Integration plus (HITRIplus) brings together all four European ion therapy centres with leading EU industries, academia, and research laboratories. Its WP8 (Superconducting Magnet Design) will explore a novel, robust, cost-effective magnet design for a light rotatable gantry and for the accelerating synchrotron. As of now, it is reviewing possible solutions and assessing the use of various types of superconductor and magnet layouts. The collaboration will then design, manufacture and test a magnet demonstrator, which will be a curved CCT (Canted Cosine Theta) dipole, wound with classical Nb-Ti.
Figure 2: Sketch of compact ion gantry based on 3 SC CCT 90° magnets. Courtesy of TERA foundation.
Continuing the tradition of FP6-CARE, FP7-Eucard, FP7-Eucard2 and H2020-ARIES programs, the Innovation Fostering in Accelerator Science and Technology (I.FAST) is a vast program consisting of 48 members, mostly being Research Institutes and Universities active in the field of particle accelerators. Similarly to HITRIplus program, I.FAST has a work package on superconducting magnets, WP8 (the number is pure coincidence), with the same research institutes of HITRIplus WP8. Its scope is to study the CCT magnet design in High Temperature Superconductor (HTS) together with industry, for particle therapy with hadrons (namely heavy ions). I.FAST WP8 has the goal to bring the HTS CCT technology to maturity to allow for a later design of a full HTS system. If successful and if the time scale fits, HTS technology will be operating at higher temperature than 5 K with consequent simplification of the cooling system and energy saving.
Figure 3: 3D view of the CCT magnet assembly.
With 15 meetings held in less than a year (eight for HITRIplus and seven for I.FAST), the collaboration between the research institutes is progressing well. The participants have selected common targets for the magnet: 80 mm of free bore, 4 T of central field with a field ramp rate of about 0.4 T/s. Performance of the various design options are being evaluated against these targets, which are suitable for a gantry application for carbon ion therapy with beam rigidity of B*ρ = 6.6 Tm, corresponding to the fully stripped ion energy of 430 MeV/nucleon, where the curvature radius of the gantry, ρ, is 1.65 m for field of 4 T.
Figure 4: CCT curved dipole with sketch of field lines (in arrows form).
While HITRIplus and I.FAST will share a common thermal design, both will develop CCT type magnets with different topology and material. I.FAST is working on two straight CCT magnets, the first one is a combined function (dipole + quadrupole) magnet based on Nb-Ti with fine filaments for low losses (sketch in Fig. 3), and the second one, the main outcome, is a straight CCT based on HTS. HITRIplus has taken up the challenge to build a curved magnet demonstrator with a very small bending radius of 1.65 m. The provisional baseline of HITRIplus is to have Nb-Ti conductor wound as CCT (Fig. 4), conduction cooled with impregnation, since HTS technology is not yet mature to be tested in a curved geometry proven (it is the job of I.FAST to prove it, however in a simpler straight shape). For both programs, due to indirect cooling and ramped operation, the thermal design will be more critical than for the usual steady state operating mode with wet coil layout.
In January 2022, the European Commission announced the selection of the first three Horizon Europe projects with CERN participation. Submitted under the Research Infrastructure programme, these projects promise new developments in transnational access to accelerator and detector research facilities, new digital twin engines, and a European Open Science Cloud.
“2021 was the first year of the new EU Framework Programme, Horizon Europe, and we have seen continued interest of CERN teams for participation in EU projects with 29 proposal submitted so far” explains Svetlomir Stavrev, Head of the EU Projects Management and Operational Support section at CERN. “CERN was one of the most successful international organisations in the Horizon 2020 framework programme. The selection of the first Horizon Europe projects gives us confidence in our success for the years to come!”
A new, synergetic network of research facilities for accelerator and detector technologies, such is the promise of the EURO-LABS project. “The transnational access project brings together, for the first time, the three communities engaged in nuclear physics, accelerator science and technology, and detectors for high-energy physics, pioneering a super community of sub-atomic researchers” explains Ilias Efthymiopoulos, EURO-LABS deputy scientific coordinator. CERN will grant access to several of its facilities and will also contribute to the scientific coordination and project management of EURO-LABS. The project brings together 31 participants from 16 countries and will start on 1 September 2022 for a duration of four years.
In the aim of supporting the growing number of research use cases, interTwin will build the prototype of a universal digital twin engine, a software able to virtually replicate any physical device, product or entity thanks to machine learning and software analytics. “The project will bring together modelling and simulation experts in high-energy physics, radio astronomy, astroparticle physics, climate research, and environmental monitoring” says Maria Girone, Chief Technical Officer of the CERN openlab. CERN provides solutions in the fields of advanced AI workflow method lifecycle, complex simulation and modelling. The project gathers a consortium of 28 participants from 12 countries and will begin on 1 September 2022 for three years.
To create an ever more tailored environment for researchers and improve the interoperability of their discoveries, FAIRCORE4EOSC will develop new core components of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). “The project will integrate CERN-developed InvenioRDM and Zenodo as digital repository solutions that are well integrated with EOSC core components, particularly to offer a FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) infrastructure for research software archival” adds Jose Gonzalez Lopez, Digital Repositories Section Leader. The project brings together a consortium of 22 partners from 10 European countries. It will start on 1 May 2022 and will run for three years.
From quantum-resistant cryptography to advanced robotics, from two-dimensional materials to extreme data mining, over twenty Horizon Europe calls have been identified by CERN’s EU Projects Office as of potential interest for the organisation. If you are considering EU funding for your R&D projects, please do not hesitate to visit the CERN EU Projects website and contact the EU Office.
The first three Horizon Europe projects with CERN participation, spanning engineering, accelerator technology and computer science, have been approved for funding
2021 ended, and so did the last calls of Horizon 2020 (H2020). While H2020 projects will continue for several years, you may now submit your new proposals to Horizon Europe (HE) calls. But what difference does it make? What changes, and what doesn’t, with Horizon Europe?
As the first funded HE projects with CERN participation being announced, let’s highlight three key points regarding Horizon Europe, compared to Horizon 2020:
Horizon Europe is an evolution, not a revolution (with a slightly increased overall budget)
To make it simple, Horizon Europe is a €95.5 billion programme for research and innovation that will last for 7 years (2021-2027). HE is structured in three main areas, which are called pillars. In each Pillar, several calls are published each year on the Portal. CERN is mostly concerned by Pillar 1, but also to a lesser extent, by Pillar 2.
If you are familiar with H2020 pillars and calls, you will not be lost:
HE is still structured into three Pillars.
Pillar 1 barely changed (only Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) calls moved to Pillar 3).
Pillar 2 now integrates Global challenges.
As novelty, we can name Missions which will be transversal calls (not linked to a given Pillar).
With HE comes a new Corporate MGA (Model Grant Agreement)
Easier to use thanks to a standardised data sheet at the beginning and the Annex 5 for Specific Rules (if applicable) at the end, Horizon Europe’s MGA gives also more importance to Open Science and FAIR data.
CERN remains eligible for funding
Associated Countries to Horizon Europe evolve. Although Switzerland is no longer associated to Horizon Europe (does it ring a bell, like in 2014?), CERN, as non-governmental organisation, remains eligible for funding.
You want to go into more details regarding the changes between Horizon Europe (FP9) and Horizon 2020 (FP8)? Please have a look to our website, where you will find a presentation with a comparative overview of both programmes, the main legal changes, the main financial changes, and the main changes in the MSCA.
May you have further questions, or want to apply to a Horizon Europe call, please get in touch with us: eu.projects@cern.ch
As the first funded Horizon Europe projects being announced, let’s highlight three key points to keep in mind regarding Horizon Europe, the 9th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development.
