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Integration of the ALICE experiment’s inner tracker, LHC, CERN. Photo: Maximilien Brice (2007)

Background Information: The Portfolio Process within the Helmholtz Association

The federal government has granted an annual increase to the research institutions organised within the Joint Initiative for Research and Innovation in order to enable them to look into topics of future relevance, to promote training of the next generation of scientist and to render the scientific system in Germany even stronger. The Helmholtz Association now uses part of this increase in the funding of a number of portfolio topics, which have been identified to be of particular future relevance by experts from all Helmholtz centres in an encompassing identification process. The research partners at the universities are likewise to profit from this funding. The portfolio topics will be continued as part of the Research Programmes as of the next funding period.

More information:

www.helmholtz.de/portfolio

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Helmholtz Accelerates Development of Innovative Accelerators

Increasingly, particle accelerators are used also by medicine, life sciences and material research. The development and construction of innovative accelerator components thus has evolved into a comprehensive task that now receives intensified funding from the Helmholtz Association: Six Helmholtz centres, two Helmholtz institutes, eleven universities, two Max Planck Institutes and the Max Born Institute closely cooperate on the portfolio topic of "Accelerator Research and Development" (ARD). The project is funded by 16.7 million Euro between 2011 and 2014. Subsequently, the accelerator initiative is to be consolidated in the context of programme-oriented funding.

Within the Helmholtz Association, particle accelerators have made possible breakthroughs in both nuclear and particle physics and contributed to photon research and the further development of accelerator technology at the centres DESY, GSI, KIT, the Forschungszentrum Jülich, the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin and the Helmholtz Centre in Dresden-Rossendorf.

Today, accelerator facilities are used increasingly in research on active agents, in bio- and nanosciences or material research and are developed for specific applications, for instance for tumour treatment with ion rays. The use of laser-like UV radiation from particle accelerators for the production of future generations of computer chips is also being discussed.

"Over the past years, accelerator technology has developed into a key technology requiring fast advancement. We therefore bundle the competences and further develop the networking between the German research institutions", says Prof. Dr Jürgen Mlynek, President of the Helmholtz Association. The "Accelerator Research and Development" (ARD) portfolio topic can be funded from part of the increase placed at the disposal of extramural research institutions by the federal government within the Joint Initiative for Research and Innovation.

The portfolio topic ARD creates a platform for networking the diverse competences at German research institutions thus enabling synergies. This platform is to function as a starting point for international cooperation projects and to render the German contribution towards the further development of accelerator technologies internationally visible. The research topics include superconducting accelerator technologies, innovative particle sources, electron-photon interaction and ultra short particle bunches as well as innovative concepts for circular accelerators and accelerators with ultrahigh gradients. In addition to this, an important task is the training of young scientists.

Helmholtz Centres:

Coordinating Spokesman Dr Reinhard Brinkmann, DESY

Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY
Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf HZDR
Forschungszentrum Jülich
GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology KIT
Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie HZB

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