Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GNeuS (Global Neutron Scientists)
Reporting period: 2021-09-01 to 2023-08-31
Neutrons are an essential tool for scientific investigations because of their unique properties and capabilities for studying the condensed matter across a wide range of scientific disciplines, from fundamental research to applied sciences. Their peculiar properties make them indispensable in many scientific and industrial contexts.
Europe has taken the lead in neutron scattering for the last 40 years thanks to its world-class sources associated with smaller national ones, which had up to now taken on the substantial task to educate and train generations of neutron scientists. However, with the shutdown of some smaller national sources due to their obsolescence, the neutron community is facing the medium and long-term challenge of holding on to this leadership especially in terms of the responsibility of educating and training a new generation of scientists destined to uphold European sovereignty in this field, in view of the future ESS.
The MLZ partners took the opportunity to establish the GNeuS project, a novel training programme taking postdoctoral education to a higher level, to tackle the tasks accomplished by those national sources that are shutdown.
GNeuS excellence is based on two primary goals: (i) to train the next generation of young scientists from all relevant scientific disciplines in the use of neutrons to answer their particular scientific questions; and (ii) to develop a new generation of neutron scientists that can fully utilise the potential of the next generation of neutron sources, such as the ESS, and ensure a high level of expertise in neutron instrumentation in the future.
Europe has taken the lead in neutron scattering for the last 40 years thanks to its world-class sources associated with smaller national ones, which had up to now taken on the substantial task to educate and train generations of neutron scientists. However, with the shutdown of some smaller national sources due to their obsolescence, the neutron community is facing the medium and long-term challenge of holding on to this leadership especially in terms of the responsibility of educating and training a new generation of scientists destined to uphold European sovereignty in this field, in view of the future ESS.
The MLZ partners took the opportunity to establish the GNeuS project, a novel training programme taking postdoctoral education to a higher level, to tackle the tasks accomplished by those national sources that are shutdown.
GNeuS excellence is based on two primary goals: (i) to train the next generation of young scientists from all relevant scientific disciplines in the use of neutrons to answer their particular scientific questions; and (ii) to develop a new generation of neutron scientists that can fully utilise the potential of the next generation of neutron sources, such as the ESS, and ensure a high level of expertise in neutron instrumentation in the future.
The MLZ partners, namely FZJ, TUM and Hereon, committed to provide a total of 45 post-doc Grants of 24 months each with 3 different calls.
During the first periodic report the following activities were carried out:
- the web portal and the online application portal were developed from scratch
- the Partnership Agreement was signed among the three MLZ partners
- two Calls took place
o Call N. 1 01.11.2021-15.01.2022
o Call N. 2 01.11.2022-18.01.2023
- the two Calls were extensively advertised
- the applications are submitted and managed on the online portal
- the selection processes ran timely, transparently and smoothly
- ethical issues were checked for each application that passed the eligibility check
- the recruitment has been delayed by the difficulties to get an appointment at the German Embassies worldwide and, during the Call N. 1 and also by a non-optimized hiring process
- the GNeuS Management Office provided a valuable support to all the Fellows during the preparation of the contracts as well as during the Grants
- for each Grant a Fellowship Project Agreement entered into force before the Grant is signed
- each research programme was run under the expert guidance of the Supervising Team
- each training programme was tuned upon the profile of the Fellow.
At the end of month 26 of the project, 19 Fellows from both calls have started; 1 and 6 Fellows from Call N. 1 and N. 2, respectively, have not started yet. The Fellows of the Call N. 1 already started their cooperation with their secondment non-academic institutions. Even a great obstacle, such as the lack of neutrons, couldn’t delay the overall goals. This issue was tackled by providing additional financial resources for beam line experiments at other worldwide neutron sources that practically doubled the funds made available to each Grant.
The major problem experienced during the first 24 months is the late start date of the Fellows. The 13 Fellows hired from the Call N. 1 – one is still missing - started on average about 6 months after the final notification of the ranking. This delay, mainly due to the difficulties to get appointments for visa at the German Embassies worldwide, resulted in few successful candidates eventually choosing other job offers.
During the first periodic report the following activities were carried out:
- the web portal and the online application portal were developed from scratch
- the Partnership Agreement was signed among the three MLZ partners
- two Calls took place
o Call N. 1 01.11.2021-15.01.2022
o Call N. 2 01.11.2022-18.01.2023
- the two Calls were extensively advertised
- the applications are submitted and managed on the online portal
- the selection processes ran timely, transparently and smoothly
- ethical issues were checked for each application that passed the eligibility check
- the recruitment has been delayed by the difficulties to get an appointment at the German Embassies worldwide and, during the Call N. 1 and also by a non-optimized hiring process
- the GNeuS Management Office provided a valuable support to all the Fellows during the preparation of the contracts as well as during the Grants
- for each Grant a Fellowship Project Agreement entered into force before the Grant is signed
- each research programme was run under the expert guidance of the Supervising Team
- each training programme was tuned upon the profile of the Fellow.
At the end of month 26 of the project, 19 Fellows from both calls have started; 1 and 6 Fellows from Call N. 1 and N. 2, respectively, have not started yet. The Fellows of the Call N. 1 already started their cooperation with their secondment non-academic institutions. Even a great obstacle, such as the lack of neutrons, couldn’t delay the overall goals. This issue was tackled by providing additional financial resources for beam line experiments at other worldwide neutron sources that practically doubled the funds made available to each Grant.
The major problem experienced during the first 24 months is the late start date of the Fellows. The 13 Fellows hired from the Call N. 1 – one is still missing - started on average about 6 months after the final notification of the ranking. This delay, mainly due to the difficulties to get appointments for visa at the German Embassies worldwide, resulted in few successful candidates eventually choosing other job offers.
The GNeuS Selection Committee ensures highly qualified research fellows and advanced research topics/projects with high potential, while the GNeuS partnership ensures a well-established infrastructure and sophisticated equipment at the host institutions. All of this paves the way for new areas of research that go beyond the state of the art and will be demonstrated through highly ranked publications.
The experience of GNeuS Fellows is invaluable both in terms of research and training program. Fellows are gaining new scientific and soft skills that will guide their future careers. After the fellowship, the Fellows' careers will continue with the acquired know-how and they will act as scientific centers of research and knowledge in neutron sciences, a kind of ambassadors of neutron sciences. In addition, through their networking under the GNeuS project, their exposure to scientific conferences, workshops and training schools will make GNeuS Fellows able to establish new scientific collaborations and new joint projects using neutron sciences.
The experience of GNeuS Fellows is invaluable both in terms of research and training program. Fellows are gaining new scientific and soft skills that will guide their future careers. After the fellowship, the Fellows' careers will continue with the acquired know-how and they will act as scientific centers of research and knowledge in neutron sciences, a kind of ambassadors of neutron sciences. In addition, through their networking under the GNeuS project, their exposure to scientific conferences, workshops and training schools will make GNeuS Fellows able to establish new scientific collaborations and new joint projects using neutron sciences.