The ESUO General Assembly committed to forming a Special Interest Group (SIG) on  Business, Industry and Intermediary Companies. A call for participation went out to both ESUO national delegates, and to known interested representatives of businesses, industries and intermediary companies who are users of the European lightsource facilities. In this first meeting in November 2024 the business and industry participants were joined by those intermediary companies particularly drawn from the “Mediators connecting industry to X-rays and neutrons” (MIXN) network https://mixn.org/  Many ESUO delegates joined with these, some of whom are themselves involved in instrument or intermediary companies within their national arenas.  Part of ESUOs missions is to represent the interests and needs of all users of synchrotron and FEL facilities in Europe, which of course includes industrial and business users and their clients. 

The first online meeting of this ESUO SIG drew planned participation from 22 members, of whom 21 were able to join. These included ten national delegates of ESUO of whom three are involved in businesses and intermediary companies. These include SARomics Biostructures (Sweden), LynXes Innovation Kft. (Hungary) and the BioMERA platform (Cyprus). Among the additional 10 participating businesses, industries and other companies were representatives of Science as a Service, Datzmann interact & innovate, Finden Ltd, KAI – Infineon Technologies, Scatterin AB, DECTRIS, Tiller Alpha, and TX Products,  Xploraytion GmbH, as well as Momentum Transfer. ESUO gives special thanks to Uwe Sassenberg for his engagement with us in this area, who now personally represents Science As A Service (https://www.sasas.eu/en) and has been integral in developing the MIXN network.

The initial meeting of this SIG started with the ESUO President Cormac McGuinness introducing ESUO, it’s structure, vision and missions to the business and industry participants emphasising its role in supporting European photon science users from across the European Research Area.  The participating business and industry representatives then reciprocated by introducing themselves. The purpose of the SIG was initially to introduce the academic user community representatives to the industrial users and to seek common ground. ESUO aims to advocate for equitable access to lightsources and advocate for users from both academia and industry, focusing on removing barriers to access. Historically ESUO has not been as involved with industrial users as with academic users represented on national basis and this was an opportunity to increase ESUO and industry’s mutual engagement on a European basis. There is potential to increase or create stronger partnerships with industries and national ESUO delegates and their user communities that they represent.

The diverse challenges and needs of industrial users were discussed inclusive of the need for better visibility and a discussion on strategies and information sharing ensued within the meeting. The importance of the continued adoption of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data practices was highlighted as beneficial to both academic and industrial users, potentially easing data management, sharing, and governance challenges. It was noted that business data practices mirror FAIR internally.

Among the challenges faced by industry and business users of lightsources are the multiple regulatory and compliance barriers and regulations, which can complicate collaborations between industry and research facilities. There was agreement that these barriers could be explored further with a view to working towards establishing clear policies that support equitable collaboration.

A commitment for the second meeting of this SIG was made, with a view to refining defined actions to be taken in collaboration with each other. This would then be the opportunity to involve further participants in advance of a potential meeting or workshop on a topic to be decided.

Finally, ESUO and industry participants agreed on the importance of machine learning and data standards for spectroscopies as an important point to help accelerate innovation and discovery for industrial and academic users at European lightsource facilities.

Participants in 1st meeting of the ESUO SIG on Business, Industry and Intermediary Companies

If you want to participate in the next SIG on Business, Industry and Intermediary Companies, then please contact ESUO and the Vice President Bridget Murphy in cc: with the ESUO Treasurer Carla Bittencourt.