Update from LINXS Director

It is now three months since the move of LINXS from Ideon to our new location within The Loop at Science Village. This was completed very smoothly and we now find ourselves co-located in a superb science environment that simply could not be better in terms of delivering the LINXS mission as an advanced studies institute.

Since arriving in March, there has, as predicted, been a large increase in engagement locally, nationally and internationally. Some of this is attributable to the quality of the premises and its location directly adjacent to the tram stop (only 10 minutes from the city centre) and the large facility centres, but a large amount has undoubtedly come from the momentum of the LINXS initiative itself and the development and enthusiasm of the scientific community. Parallel events and breakout sessions are now pretty much the norm – fully exploiting one of the major advantages of the new location (with its dividable conference room); student activities such as the Helios school and the Infranaut week make full use of this.

We are delighted that the KTH Royal Institute of Technology has joined the LINXS effort and established a scientific home at LINXS. This has been planned with Martin Månsson, an associate professor at KTH, and an extremely experienced solid state physicist with extensive interests in neutron and X-ray science. The idea of the KTH involvement in LINXS is to provide a place where KTH users can meet up, discuss their work and interact with other researchers at LINXS.

The LINXS inaugural conference at Science Village on 17-18 June is proving to be extremely popular and the auditorium booking has had to be re-booked for a maximum of 300. The dinner will not be able to stretch to 300 people so please register soon if you want to come – it will be followed by a very upbeat brass band! The programme is outstanding and on the second day it will feature an interactive session that will be of interest to both researchers and the public; participants will be able to visualise scientific data with Virtual and Augmented Reality, and to try ‘Pokémon-Go’ technology for beamline experiments. The conference will also be an opportunity to meet representatives from the LINXS Young Researchers’ Initiatives and to find out more about running activities for and by young researchers with focus on networking, community building and knowledge sharing.

In other news the LINXS postdoc programme AMBER, focused on Advanced Multiscale Biological imaging using European Research infrastructures, is about to open its fourth recruitment call (9th June). This time 20 positions will be advertised amongst the AMBER partner organisations: Lund University/MAX IV, Sweden, the European Spallation Source (ESS), Sweden, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL), France, the International Institute of Molecular Mechanisms and Machines, (IMOL), Poland, and the Leicester Institute of Structural and Chemical Biology, United Kingdom. These provide a wide range of unique research opportunities in biological and biomedical science – ranging from structural science at the molecular level through cellular, tissue, and organ levels of organisation. A key strategic emphasis is on building bridges gaps – be they lengthscale gaps (eg molecular/cellular) or cultural gaps (eg clinical/non-clinical).

LINXS Director Trevor Forsyth. Photo: Kennet Ruona.