Scientific and Technological Exchanges

 

Bridge workshops

Coordinator: LLE-AISBL

The role of lasers and laser-like sources in modern science and technology is increasing steadily, creating new kinds of infrastructures and pan-European projects, such as ELI and XFEL. Laserlab-Europe will promote clustering and coordinated actions to initiate cross-fertilization with these new infrastructures, in order to avoid duplication of efforts and to strengthen co-operations. Cross-disciplinary workshops will be organised aiming at creating scientific and technical bridges with other communities, dealing with such possible issues as ultra-fast X-ray detection techniques, scientific cases for joint energetic laser/ intense X-ray research programmes, etc.

Seminars/webinars:

Past Bridge workshops:

 

Joint Experimental Programme

Coordinator: CEA-LIDYL
This work aims to reinforce the scientific collaboration between Laserlab Europe partners and to gather expertise to carry out very ambitious research at the forefront of science. Proposals for Joint Experiments will be evaluated by an external selection panel with scientific excellence as the main criterion. The host will provide access without charging unit fees.

Staff Exchange

Coordinator: LLE-AISBL
Staff exchanges aim at

  1. improving specific experimental skills and competences for Laserlab Europe scientists
  2. assuring that the operators and technicians of Laserlab Europe infrastructures are trained at the highest possible level through sharing of expertise, procedures and knowledge.

Support for staff exchanges will be granted for proposals positively evaluated by a committee of experts under supervision of the Networking Board. Staff exchanges will have a typical duration of no more than two weeks.

Joint JRA Meetings

Coordinator: POLIMI
While Joint Research Activities foster collaborations among a well-defined sub-groups of Laserlab Europe partners on specific research objectives, Joint JRA Meetings are open to all partners and provide a platform for sharing knowledge and experiences on a Consortium-wide level as well as for stimulating further Networking activities in the context of the JRAs. Joint JRA Meetings are, therefore, an efficient means to induce a leverage effect on the knowledge and know-how created within the JRA groups, to spread the knowledge throughout the entire Laserlab Europe community and to create a cross-fertilisation impact.

Thematic Networks

NAUUL Meeting

Network on Extreme Intensity Laser Systems (NEILS)

Lead partners: GSI and CLPU
Extreme intensity laser systems comprise various frontier technologies pushing peak power and peak intensity through either long pulse kilojoule energy class installations, or with ultrashort pulse petawatt class laser systems. All systems exhibit dedicated demands and very specific procedures for operation, instrumentation, metrology, safety and further development. The NEILS network provides a basis for knowledge exchange on components such as large optics and complex opto-mechanical setups and on the specific requirements for instrumentation, data acquisition and even theoretical approaches.

Network Data Analysis in Imaging and Spectroscopy (NAIS)

Lead partner: ILC
The aim of this thematic network is to boost effectiveness, to foster synergies and to establish a regular forum in which knowledge about data acquisition and information extraction methodologies in imaging and spectroscopy are discussed, improved and exchanged. This forum will thus draw from advances in a certain field and cross-pollinate other fields in which similar techniques may provide a significant advance, but are not established yet. For instance, recent years have seen a spectacular advance of data extraction methods for bio imaging and spectroscopy, but these methodologies are equally relevant for the X-ray and attosecond communities.

NAIS addresses such a need with a dedicated knowledge sharing platform within the Laserlab Europe consortium. The NAIS network will especially focus on overlapping applications such as spectral imaging where image is treated as multi-modal photon-distribution dataset, obtained from simultaneous measurement with spectral (excitation, emission, polarization), spatial and temporal resolution. Activities of this platform will be aimed also on advanced data analysis techniques (such as principal component analysis, machine learning, neural networks), as well as on data extraction methods, Bayesian Inference, reconstruction of diffused imaging data, etc.

The NAIS thematic network will complement many Joint Research Activities of Laserlab Europe, where development of specific imaging techniques will play a central role. It will also foster links to related communities (such as FELs, ESMI or Euro-BioImaging), thus significantly boosting European imaging expertise and leadership. 

Network on Data Management (NEDA)

Lead partner: HZDR
Open access to research data and in particular to data underlying scientific publications represents a cornerstone of modern and future science and technology. Adequate data management is thus imperative to ensure that the FAIR principles apply, i.e. that data is findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. While networks of analytical facilities such as the accelerator-based light sources or the neutron sources communities are faced with the challenge to handle large volumes of data, reaching sizes that render easy transport by the individual Users impossible, the Laserlab Europe community is composed of a multitude of facilities of very different character and size with different individual requirements and approaches to data management. NEDA addresses data management issues and the challenge of defining a common approach for data handling and management and investigates routes to provision of open access to data. In addition, NEDA will focus on the identification of data suitable for open access provision, a thorough investigation of the extent of meta data which structures the data and the definition of standardized data formats to ensure interoperability. To avoid duplication of efforts, collaboration will be pursued with related RIs and with the INFRAEOSC projects PanOSC and ExPaNDS, to address the challenge of bridging to the European Open Science Cloud.