The 22nd ESUO General Assembly took place on the 1st and 2nd December at BESSY II / Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin. A significant part of the proceedings was the election 🗳️ of the new Executive Board as required, some four years after the previous election in October 2021. After consideration of proposed amendments to the ESUO Statutes, which were accepted by the National User Delegates of the General Assembly physically present and online, the election to the Executive Board proceeded.
The results of the election on the 1st December are that incoming board members who will be serving on the Executive Board for the next four years are Carla Bittencourt (Belgium 🇧🇪), Tom Hase (UK 🇬🇧), Maria Katsikini (Greece 🇬🇷), Rainer T. Lechner (Austria 🇦🇹), Guillaume Morard (France 🇫🇷), Bridget Murphy (Germany 🇩🇪), Louis Renault (France 🇫🇷), Ana Silva, PhD (Portugal 🇵🇹) and Moniek Tromp🟥 (Netherlands 🇳🇱). Congratulations to all! 👏🥳👏👏👏 They will be joining the continuing ESUO President Cormac McGuinness (Ireland 🇮🇪) in steering ESUO.
Pictured standing from left to right: Maria Katsikini, Louis Renault, Cormac McGuinness, Bridget Murphy, Carla Bittencourt, Rainer Lechner, Tom Hase. On screen: Guillaume Morard, Ana Silva and Moniek Tromp.
On the first day the ESUO National User Delegates were welcomed by the Facility Speaker of BESSY II Antje Vollmer and joined by scientists from the Country of Honour 2025 – Niger attending the17th BESSY@HZB User Meeting. A presentation on BESSY II+ and BESSY III were given by Antje Vollmer and Prof. Dr. Andreas Jankowiak respectively. This was then followed by an update on the statues and structures of ESUO and the agenda for the meeting. The group photo below was then taken.
There then followed intense discussions over the next day and a half regarding NEPHEWS, and other matters concerning user access, European and national policies, research and synchrotron and FEL use at the European synchrotron and FEL facilities, and the status of the national user communities represented by their delegates. A more detailed report on the ESUO General Assembly will follow.
Best wishes to all involved, and to the new board of ESUO! 👏👏👏
We are pleased to announce that the next in-person General Assembly, the 22nd GA, is to take place in Berlin-Adlershof, hosted at the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin BESSY-II synchrotron from Monday 1st to Tuesday 2nd December. Details on timing and agenda of the meeting will be finalised shortly
- On behalf of our host, Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin, I should mention the BESSY@HZB User Meeting takes place 3 to 4 December in Berlin-Adlershof and is accompanied by a dedicated “Energy day” on 5 December. For those meetings please see: https://www.helmholtz-berlin.de/user/contact—events/user-meeting/registration_en.html
We look forward to seeing as many as possible of our ESUO delegates at the meeting in Berlin. In particular, the ESUO Executive Board elections are scheduled to take place on the evening of the 1st December.
ESUO Executive Board Elections 2025: The statutes of ESUO can be inspected on this ESUO website describing our structure and governance, downloadable (in English) from this link.
- Executive Board Elections: In brief, the statutes required elections to the Executive Board every four years, and elections of ESUO President every four years, but offset by two years from the principal Executive Board elections. A proviso upon establishment of ESUO as an AISBL registered in Belgium was that the term of the initial presidency during the first transition period after the first elections after becoming an AISBL, would be a 6 year term. These first elections occurred 19 October 2021 at the 16th ESUO GA hosted at DESY/XFEL.
- A decision of the 20th ESUO GA – occurring within the context of the first NEPHEWS Supervisory Board meeting on December 3-4 2024 at SOLARIS in Krakow – delayed the second ESUO Executive Board Elections were delayed from October 2025 – 4 years after the first such elections – to occur in December 2025 at the HZB ESUO GA meeting.
- As outlined in the closing session of the 108th IUVSTA Meeting on “Machine Learning in Nanoscience” / 21st ESUO GA at U. Mons in July this year, notification of the election has now been circulated with a call for volunteer candidates or nominations of other candidates, to be notified to the ESUO President by October 28th. If no delays or extensions are required as determined by the current Executive Board, then the list of candidates will be circulated no earlier than October 31, and no later than November 7th.
- Candidates will be invited to speak and/or give a short presentation on the first day of the 22nd ESUO GA on December 1st, combined with an offer to circulate a week in advance a short summary of their details.
- The statutes of ESUO require Executive Board members to represent 8 distinct countries within ESUO, for there to be an appropriate gender balance, and for at least one Executive Board member to represent the Free-Electron Laser User community.
- We will give everyone, prospective candidates included, a summary of all things ESUO in advance of the GA in December, to highlight activities and challenges.
Further details and arrangements for the 22nd ESUO GA in Berlin will follow as soon as possible.
The IUVSTA are sponsoring a special Workshop on “Machine Learning in Nanoscience” at the University of Mons from July 22nd to July 24th 2025 which is being organised by ESUO and the University of Mons. This meeting will incorporate many of the themes developed in the ESUO Special Interest Group in Business, Industry and Intermediary Companies. These are specifically topics related to machine learning and big data relevant to the photon sciences and importantly standards for spectroscopy data for machine learning purposes, among other topics.
A range of invited speakers have already been confirmed for the meeting. For more details and registration, please visit the meeting webpage of the University of Mons:
“Machine learning in Nanoscience” (https://web.umons.ac.be/cips/en/event/90/ )
For open questions contact our local organiser Carla Bittencourt, or one of us!
For ESUO it represents an opportunity for our national delegates from around Europe to engage on these issues on behalf of their national user communities, as well as to form closer alignment with industry objectives and actors to our mutual advantage. Delegates will be better informed on how we can work together with industry for the furtherance of the use of photon based research infrastructures for European and global challenges.
Current developments and opportunities within the European lightsource landscape will be discussed as part of the meeting.
Contributions and support are gratefully acknowledged from the International Union for Vacuum Science, Technique and Application IUVSTA for which this is a named workshop and further contributions from FNRS National Fund for Scientific Research – FNRS (Wallonia-Brussels Federation); from UMons – University of Mons; the Beilstein Institut; from the Materia Nova R&D Institute; and from WBI – Wallonie-Bruxelles International est l’organisme chargé des relations internationales Wallonie-Bruxelles are gratefully acknowledged.