Update from LINXS Director
LINXS Director Trevor Forsyth. Photo: Kennet Ruona.
The first blanket of snow has just swept over Science Village and the surrounding countryside – a cheerful reminder of the impending festive season as well as perhaps a more sobering one of the amount of work everyone has to get done before Christmas. Four new science themes have just been announced at LINXS – each will be funded as of 1st January 2026 for a period of three years. These are: X-ray and neutron-based characterization of advanced semiconductors (Rainer Timm, Physics, Lund University); Soft Matter in Life: biological self-assembly across time and length scales (SMILE) (Hanna Wacklin-Knecht, Physical Chemistry, Lund University and ESS); Pandemics and Alertness (PandA) (Wolfgang Knecht, LP3 protein production platform); and Scattering and lmaging for Health lnsights and New Evidence (SHINE) (Karin Lindkvist, Experimental Medical Science, Lund University).
In connection with this major expansion of LINXS science activity, there are many to thank. Firstly we thank the LINXS Science Advisory Board (SAB) – our international advisory body that we rely on for advice on scientific direction and who are tasked with the scientific evaluation of these applications. For this round, the SAB put a huge amount of work into the review process and have noted the high quality in an extremely competitive field of applications. We specifically thank Christiane Alba-Simionesco (Laboratoire Léon Brillouin, France) who steps down as Chair of the LINXS SAB (after a period of involvement of over 8 years). Christiane has given tirelessly of her time in helping LINXS to develop to the thriving institute it now is at the heart of Science Village. Christiane will be succeeded by Kristiaan Temst (KU Leuven). We are also grateful to the Lund University faculties of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, as well as to the central leadership (Vice Chancellor) for the collective increase in core support of LINXS as part of the response to the Kloo report in 2024. Without this new investment the expansion in LINXS research activity would not have been possible. We also want to thank the LINXS Board, led by Stacey Sörensen.
We should again record deep gratitude to the Crafoord foundation for its crucial new grant to LINXS in connection with the move of LINXS in The Loop at Science Village: this one-off award will introduce immense added value to the existing and new Themes as well as to the wider science community and other users of the large scale research infrastructures. Specific mention is also made of a grant to LINXS from the LMK foundation – who have funded Daniel Sarabi as a postdoctoral researcher based jointly between LINXS and the Lund University Medical Faculty. Daniel soon completes his postdoctoral position and will take a position at Science Village Scandinavia (SVS). At SVS he will have particular responsibility for industrial engagement and in developing the national and international network of experts who use European large facilities such as MAX IV and ESS. It is anticipated that Daniel will retain good connectivity with LINXS and with the Medical Faculty in the future – so his departure is very much a case of au revoir but not adieu. It is very pleasing to see how this investment from LMK is leading to a sustained impact for Lund, the facilities, and Science Village.
The new National and International Theme Call has just opened for applications for new themes that will start in January 2027. Theme applicants can come from anywhere – locally, nationally, or internationally, and may focus on any scientific area between or within the general areas of hard matter, soft matter and life sciences, and where there is anticipation of new science/science communities that would be sustained beyond the duration of the theme.
There has been an ever increasing volume of activity: in October/November the NNSP-SwedNESS and XANADU schools were held at LINXS, as well as the young researchers symposium on hard matter, the first Nordic sub-micron IR microscopy conference, a workshop on cross-platform collaboration in integrative structural biology, and a Quasar workshop on data processing. There was also an excellent seminar by Robert McGreevy (STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, and Chair of ESS Council) entitled From the Big Bang to ESS BOT. Daniel Hussey (NIST, USA) gave an intriguing seminar on Multi-modal and multi-scale imaging at NIST. This was followed by a seminar by Clarissa Cagnato (Archéologie des Amériques, France) on the use of SR-μCT to study ancient carbonized foods.
The yearly LINXS Digital Town Hall meeting will be on 24th November – the four new theme leaders will present their plans and aspirations. This is a wholly online meeting and an excellent opportunity for anyone to participate regardless of location.
Don’t forget the 25th November – the early Christmas mingle at LINXS – come one come all!
We also want to highlight two young researchers' events: an introduction to tomography on 4th December and the Soft Matter YRI on 9th December.