To reach out to new potential industrial users for European neutron centres, SINE2020's work package “Industry Consultancy” organised the event SYNERGI2018 - Synchrotron and Neutron Radiation Go Industrial: bringing together advanced research facility scientists and industrial researchers. The event gathered 68 participants from large scale research facilities, universities and industry in Amsterdam on March 8-9, 2018 in the NEMO Science Museum. The core topic of the first Edition was Engineering Materials Science. In order to bundle resources and increase visibility, the event was supported by other EU projects dealing with industry service at large scale facilities such as CALIPSOplus, NFFA and ACCELERATE. The event got also support by Enterprise Europe Network (EEN), which organised the research to business (R2B) matchmaking session.

The presentations generated lively discussions about the needs of industry and the challenges regarding the ease-of-use of ARIs by industrial researchers. The need for a direct translation of “advanced measurements and analysis” into the “engineering world” was underlined, and the need for engineering simulation tools in particular. In the following research to business (R2B) matchmaking session, 65 meetings between the 38 participants were scheduled. The session offered a good opportunity to go into details about existing problems of the participating companies and how they could be solved by ARI techniques. Besides general exchange regarding possibilities at ARIs, several appointments led to agreements of further cooperation in the coming year. SYNERGI2018 successfully provided a forum for industrials, ARI representatives and academic researchers with strong industry cooperation to discuss the possibilities for industrial R&D to better benefit from ARIs. Industry cases were shown both from industrial and ARI point of view. During the discussions, both during the presentation sessions and the breakout groups, it became clear that ARIs have valuable assets but the packaging needs improvement to be more appropriate for commercial access. The services should be streamlined and, where appropriate, standardised.

What is next? A second issue of SYNERGI, SYNERGI2019, is under consideration and could eventually focus on advanced chemistry: pharmaceutical chemistry, catalysts, cosmetics, technical chemicals, additives, etc. Since 2016 the EU projects involved in SYNERGI2018 have developed the concept of the “European Analytical Research Infrastructures Village” (EARIV) - a visibility and marketing tool used in exhibitions e.g. at large conferences with stakeholders from industry and policy makers, to raise awareness in industry about role ARIs play in industrial R&D and the new possibilities that they open.

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