Group picture at the ALBA experimental hall. From left to right, Joan Gómez Pallarès, Raquel Yotti, Diana Morant, Caterina Biscari, Joaquim Nadal, Pere Solà, Carles Cordón and Ramon Pascual.
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Cerdanyola del Vallès, November 18, 2022. Accompanied by the director of the ALBA Synchrotron, Caterina Biscari, and part of her management team, the Minister of Science and Innovation of the Spanish Government, Diana Morant, and the Minister of Research and Universities of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Joaquim Nadal, have visited the ALBA Synchrotron today. Raquel Yotti, General Secretary for Research of the Government of Spain, and Joan Gómez Pallarès, General Director of Research of the Generalitat de Catalunya, were also present during the visit together with Carles Cordón, mayor of Cerdanyola del Vallès, and Pere Solà, director of Parc de l'Alba.
During their tour at the ALBA Synchrotron facilities, Diana Morant and Joaquim Nadal have had the opportunity to see some of the beamlines in detail and speak with the users who were carrying out experiments today, proving the great amount of applications that synchrotron light has. The development of materials for renewable energies, the analysis of cells infected by Sars-Cov-2 or the study of magnetic materials for the future quantum computers are just some of the examples that they witness.
They have also seen how the construction of new beamlines is advancing. In particular, they have visited the MINERVA beamline, which will come into operation in 2023 and will serve to characterize the mirrors of the Athena telescope of the European Space Agency.
The visit has ended in the joint electron microscopy platform at ALBA (JEMCA), launched in collaboration with other research institutions (IBMB-CSIC, IRB Barcelona, CRG, UAB, ICN2, ICMAB-CSIC, IFAE). There, two microscopes have already been installed (one for biomedical studies and another for materials science), both co-funded with ERDF funds from the Generalitat de Catalunya and a third infrastructure will arrive, as part of the Planes Complementarios for Advanced Materials project.
At the end of the visit, the Minister Diana Morant highlighted to the media the great capacity of the ALBA Synchrotron to serve the scientific and industrial community, ensuring that "its multiple applications help us to face the challenges we have as a country". She has reaffirmed that the Government supports this type of facilities, being a proof of that the different contributions that have been assigned to ALBA from the Ministry's Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, some already dedicated to the future of the project, ALBA II.
Minister Joaquim Nadal has remarked that facilities like ALBA are a step forward to keep science at the forefront of society. He has also highlighted that "the contributions that the administrations make to the research and infrastructure system is the money most well spent, to ensure the present and above all to guarantee the future".
The director of ALBA, Caterina Biscari, has transmitted to both administrations the commitment of the ALBA Synchrotron to keep collaborating with the scientific and industrial community in developing cutting-edge science, offering the existing excellent instruments and developing new tools for the future.
Moments of the visit. At the left, Diana Morant and Caterina Biscari at the LOREA beamline with scientist Massimo Tallarida. At the right, Diana Morant and Joaquim Nadal with the group at the ALBA experimental hall.
At the left, visiting BOREAS beamline and talking to users coming from South Korea. At the right, visiting MISTRAL beamline with scientist Ana Joaquina Pérez-Berná.
