The PaNData consortium of data managers at European sychrotrons and neutron sources was presented at the 19th Synchrotron Radiation conference held at Novosibirsk in Siberia today, extending an invitation to Russian synchrotrons to join them.
The Siberian Synchrotron and Terahertz Radiation Centre (SSTRC) in Novosibirsk has got two facilities: a synchrotron based on a particle accelerator with about 2000 hours of operational time annually (and another 4000 hours devoted to particle physics), and laser facility for measurements in terahertz frequency range.
SSTRC is a major supplier of synchrotron technology, with 3 of the 4 synchrotrons currently running in Russia having been built by them. The quantum-beam-based research centre in South Korea is also guided by Novosibirsk specialists. The Siberian centre is the most productive of the four sites in central Russia, although the user community is small compared to the major European synchrotron centres, at a few hundred users only.
STFC's Vasily Bunakov presented the work being done by the PaNData consortium to increase the mobility of researchers across facities to the Russian conference inviting them to join the consortium. Each facility provides different instruments and experimental conditions, so more than 20% of European facility users use more than one facility in their work. The PaNData consortium is implementing common policies and technologies for computing support for facilities in order to ease the mobility of researchers between facilities so that they can take advantage of these differences. The consortium awaits a formal reply from the Russians.
