Focused Ion Beam (FIB) techniques have become indispensable across the materials and life sciences, enabling site-specific sample preparation, nanostructuring, three-dimensional analysis, and advanced workflows for electron microscopy. Recent advances in cryo-FIB and correlative methods have further widened their role in biological and soft-matter research.

The Training School on the Development and Application of Focused Ion Beams is organised jointly by RIANA and Eu-FIB.net. RIANA, Research Infrastructure Access in NAnoscience & nanotechnology, is a Horizon Europe project that brings together seven European analytical research infrastructure networks and 69 facilities behind a single point of entry: one application gives researchers access to simulation, synthesis, nanofabrication, characterisation and analysis capabilities across Europe, with on-site scientists supporting users from experiment design through to publication. Ion-beam and FIB access within RIANA runs through its RADIATE network, which also represents the focused ion beams, precisely the subject of this school. RIANA supports the school financially, and much of the teaching faculty, the host team at the Ernst Ruska-Centre included, comes from RIANA partner infrastructures. Participants therefore do not only learn the methods: they meet the people and stand at the instruments they may later apply to use through RIANA.

Eu-FIB.net, the European Focused Ion Beam Network, connects developers, manufacturers, and users of FIB technology from academia, industry, and research institutions across Europe and beyond. Its mission is twofold: to consolidate the established methods, instruments, and partnerships of the field, and to open up new interdisciplinary approaches and collaborations. Growing out of the D-A-CH FIB workshops held since 2007 and the 2024 merger with the FIT4NANO COST Action (2021-2024), it now serves as the central meeting point for the European FIB community, and continues the training-school series held in Brno (2022) and Thun (2024).

Training the next generation of FIB scientists and bridging communities that traditionally interact only loosely are core objectives of both partners, and the Training School 2026 puts them into practice. Hosted at the Ernst Ruska-Centre (ER-C) at Forschungszentrum Jülich, one of Europe’s leading microscopy infrastructures, with state-of-the-art cryo-FIB and plasma FIB instrumentation, it deepens both the theoretical understanding and the practical command of modern FIB methodologies through invited lectures, tutorials, live instrument demonstrations, and intensive hands-on training in small rotating groups.

A dedicated session is devoted to getting access to European research infrastructures: how RIANA transnational access works, how to write a successful access proposal, and a first-hand account from a researcher who has been through the process. For early-career participants this is often the step between knowing a technique and being able to use it for their own science.

The school is aimed primarily at PhD students and early-stage postdoctoral researchers seeking practical experience with state-of-the-art FIB methodologies and instrumentation. By combining lectures with extensive laboratory training, it supports the next generation of FIB scientists and strengthens exchange across materials science, biology, and microscopy instrumentation, and invites participants to become part of both the RIANA and the Eu-FIB.net communities.