ESRF – European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
The ESRF is the world’s most intense X-ray source and a centre of excellence for fundamental and innovation-driven research in condensed and living matter science.
The intense source of synchrotron-generated light produces X-rays 100 billion times brighter than the X-rays used in hospitals. These X-rays, endowed with exceptional properties, are produced at the ESRF by the high energy electrons that race around the storage ring, a circular tunnel measuring 844 metres in circumference.
Each year, the demand to use these X-ray beams increases and near to 9000 scientists from around the world come to “beamlines”, each equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation, operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Located in Grenoble, France, the ESRF owes its success to the international cooperation of 22 partner nations, of which 13 are Members and 9 are Associates.
ESRF role in PaNOSC
The ESRF, which coordinates and manages the PaNOSC project, has spearheaded the development of a 4th generation storage ring with the Extremely Bright Source (EBS) project in the synchrotron community. Data management is a cornerstone of the upgrade. ESRF is the first major synchrotron to implement an Open Data policy including archiving data for 10 years. The experience of the ESRF implementing an Open Data policy since 2015 has been used in WP2 to update the Open Data policy framework for PaNOSC. The EBS source will provide new beamlines with unprecedented flux which in turn will generate huge quantities of data. Dealing with the future data deluge will be one of the challenges PaNOSC will help the ESRF address. Work packages WP4 will provide services on site and as part of EOSC to help users deal with the huge data volumes on site or remotely. ESRF will need to extend the NeXus standard to incorporate the new experimental setups. This will be done as part of WP3. The ESRF is leader in a number of open source software packages and therefore has a long experience in developing software and collaborating in Open Source projects. ESRF has been involved in the EOSC via the stakeholders meetings, EOSC Pilot, and is well aware and aligned with the goals of the EOSC. ESRF has committed itself in a number of actions directly linked to the EOSC (open data policy, data management, data services etc.). PaNOSC is the latest in the line of actions to link up with the goals of the EOSC and provide users with better data services.
PaNOSC partners
