When ESS and MAX IV are in full operation, some 5,000 researchers will be visiting every year. If you create interesting enough environments around the research facilities, it will give researchers reason to stay a little longer or come back to meet people and make new contacts. This would provide opportunities not only to the scientific community but also for the university and the industry – and to everybody else who can benefit from access to cutting-edge researchers.
At ESS, we have an excellent collaboration with Science Village, which owns the land between the facilities and thus also the question of how to use it. There are plenty of interesting thoughts and plans at Science Village, but most importantly we agree on the critical issue: this is not any development project. The area needs actors, organisations and companies that can strengthen and support our research and also contribute to creating the critical mass of highly skilled people from around the world that we hope to gather here.
Subsequently, we need access to meeting rooms close by. Today, when ESS arranges conferences and meetings that can give visitors a reason to stay, we basically have to do it in Malmö or at Copenhagen Airport. In Lund, it is often difficult to find venues suitable for meetings comprising between two hundred and one thousand participants. There are a couple, but they are few and often fully booked.
I also think there will be a constant need for smaller, temporary workplaces for some ten employees, preferably within walking distance of ESS and MAX IV. Not least, this would benefit visiting researchers when they only need to do office work, thus being able to skip the rigorous security checks at the research facilities.
Pia Kinhult
Head of Host States Relations at the ESS
Submit a Comment